Sick Days
by RealFunkyTown
Summary: Dean’s obsession with apparently random medical deaths from his past lands him and Sam in the middle of a deadly epidemic. When Dean falls ill Sam struggles to keep his brother alive long enough to learn the truth about what’s happening to the town.
1. Chapter 1

**Main story takes place Season 2 (2007) sometime after 'Born Under a Bad Sign' with flashbacks to 1987.  
**

* * *

_Champion, Illinois  
_

Sam stirred as he heard an irregular tapping noise coming from the corner of the motel room. Even as he heard it he was still half asleep and way too exhausted to deal with anything that wasn't a serious threat. It could be Casper for all he cared. As long as the ghost wasn't on a homicidal kick it could wait until morning.

He lay beneath the warmth of covers for a few moments longer futilely hoping that the disturbance would stop on its own. No such luck. Grudgingly he turned in the bed to see what was making the annoying sound.

Big shocker. It was his brother. Dean sat at the corner table illuminated by the glow of Sam's laptop. He must have left it on because there was no way that Dean had actually figured out how to turn it on himself. Sam rubbed the sleep from his eyes before looking towards the bed stand clock.

With a groan he pulled the extra pillow over his head, but it wasn't as if he could actually just go back to sleep. He supposed he had to figure out why his brother, who had claimed there was no way he could drive through the night, was staring intently at a computer screen at three in the morning.

"Dean, what are you doing?" he finally asked.

"Watching porn."

Sam sighed as he threw off his blankets and pushed himself out of bed. Dean's quick answer that was apparent brutal honesty had to be a lie. Staggering over to Dean's side, he got a confused look from his brother.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Dean asked. "Viewing porn together is way too much brotherly love – even for you."

After glaring at Dean, Sam glanced down over his brother's shoulder to the computer screen. "'The Bay Tribune'?" Sam read off the website header.

"'Bay'?" Dean replied with poorly feigned surprise. "Man, I swear, I thought it said 'The Babe Tribune'."

"Dean, do I want to know why you're reading an Oregon coast newspaper in the middle of the night when we're heading to Philadelphia in the morning?"

Dean shrugged. "Probably not."

"We are still going to Philadelphia in the morning?"

"Yeah...uh, about that...something kinda came up."

It wasn't like Sam was actually surprised. This thing in Philadelphia involved some seriously messed up Cessna crashes. He had uselessly been hoping that Dean had miraculously worked out the whole flying issue when they'd worked the case for Jerry, but obviously not. Really it had only been a question of what excuse Dean would come up with.

"Well that's convenient."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Dean shot back.

"You don't think I know what this is?" As much as he tried, Dean couldn't pull anything over on him. "What could have come up in the middle of this hotel room while you were sleeping aside from a nightmare about airplanes?"

"What?" Dean flashed him an incredulous look before returning his eyes to the computer screen. "I don't have any problems with airplanes...as long as they stay on the ground," he added under his breath. "Besides, this doesn't have a damn thing to do with planes."

"Is this about the Demon?"

"No. Something else."

"Then what?" He was way too tired to play twenty questions with his evasive brother. "A nude colony of cheerleaders in peril, zombie strippers or did you just read a review that the local diner has the world's best pie?"

"Give me some credit will you? You've got your freaky vision thingies and I got my gut."

"And your gut is telling you that after we drove half way across the country to get here we should just drop this case and go to Oregon?"

"Basically...yep."

"Before we dump a case that Ellen asked us to look into and drive all the way back across the continent you're going to have to give me something to work with."

"Six people are dead. Two fathers. Four sons. Six different families."

Seeing that Dean was serious about this, Sam reluctantly pulled up a chair to hear what his brother had to say. "Okay...how did they die?"

Dean made a face before answering – one that alerted Sam that he wasn't going to like what Dean had to say next. "Stroke, kidney failure, heart failure, blood clot and uh...cerebral edema," he concluded with a glance towards the computer screen.

Sam stared at his brother with his mouth partially open as he searched for the words. "You do realize that none of those are supernatural or even related?" Sam finally asked.

Dean shrugged an acknowledgment.

"Alright. Who are the victims?" Sam asked in a last ditch effort to figure out where Dean was coming from with this.

He got the same wishy-washy look Dean had given when he asked about the cause of death. "There's a 45 year old computer repair guy, 36 year old hazelnut farmer, 19 year old college student and the three kids."

"Who have never met?"

"Yeah...as far as I can tell."

"Is this a joke?" Sam replied in disbelief. "That's not a case. These are completely unrelated medical deaths. No matter how much you hate flying we're not doctors, Dean."

"You're freakin' hilarious. We can skip the online degrees for this one. I think it's all tied in with the local sanitarium that's due for demolition."

"You 'think' or you have something resembling actual evidence?"

"Seriously, Sam. I'm not just pulling this out of my ass."

"Really? Because it sure as hell sounds like you are. How can we just drop everything for whatever you think this is?"

"How about because I just need you to trust me on this."

Dean was smart to leave off the unsaid 'and because I'm not asking' that Sam knew his brother had bit back. Despite what Dean liked to think, Sam did have a say in the jobs they chose. Dean couldn't say they were a team and then act like it was a one man show.

"And because I've followed you on a hell of a lot less," Dean added when he didn't get a verbal reply.

"I know," Sam acknowledged. "But we're both exhausted, Dean. Let's just go to bed and talk about it in the morning."

"I'm not going to change my mind in the morning."

"Maybe I will."

He just wanted his brother to get some rest and think this over. Even though it was off the wall insane, even for Dean, if it was that important to his brother, he'd go with it. In the morning.

Right now he just wanted to talk Dean out of it and tell him just what a crazy chicken shit he was. Aside from knowing how frustratingly useless that would be, the thing was, Sam didn't really believe it. As much as he couldn't see any reason for Dean to be pushing this, aside from grasping at anything that would get him as far from Philadelphia as possible, there was no way this was about cutting out on a case.

Dean got scared, a lot, even though his brother would never admit it. But Dean never ran and he was loyal to Dad's old friends to a fault. If Dean was running to Oregon, he was running towards something, not away from it. There had to be a reason Dean had latched on to this but Sam wasn't as psychic as Dean thought he was. He could only hope that his brother would feel like talking in the morning.

"Okay?" Sam prompted again when Dean remained staring at the screen.

Dean made a show of closing the laptop before he leaned back in the chair. Sam watched his brother for a moment longer. He only had the dim city light slipping in from the outside to go by, but it was enough to see that Dean was completely lost in thought. Whatever this was, it wasn't just some stupid excuse for avoiding planes.

If he didn't already know that it would be pointless, he would have tried to talk to get something more out of Dean. Instead of driving them both insane Sam returned to his bed before glancing back at his brother once more.

"Just try to get some sleep."

* * *

_  
The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay, Oregon – 1987_

"Just try to get some sleep, Sammy."

"Where's Daddy?"

Dean sighed as he hopped up to sit beside Sammy on the bed. It was like the fiftieth time his brother had asked him where Dad was. He was trying to be patient, but he didn't know why his little brother expected him to know everything.

It had been almost four years of moving around since the fire had taken Mommy away and Dean was tired. He was tired of the nightmares and of not knowing what to do. He was tired of his family disappearing. Dad and Sammy needed him to take care of them. He was trying, but it wasn't good enough.

As annoying as Sammy could be, without having his little brother to look after he didn't know what he would do. Dad was gone again, way longer than he'd said he would be, and he was afraid that soon he was going to be all alone.

"Already told you. Dad's out working."

"Where?"

"I don't know, but he's going to be back soon. Just trust me, okay?"

"Okay," Sammy said as he snuggled down into his sheets. Dean thought he finally had his little brother in bed when Sammy popped up again. "I'm hungry."

With another sigh, Dean looked down at his hands on his lap. He didn't know what to tell Sammy. There was no more food. Dean hadn't eaten since yesterday and he'd had to ration out what was left of the crackers to Sammy for breakfast and lunch.

Dad was only supposed to have been gone for the night and that was days ago. Dean had found what cash Dad had left in the room but he'd had to give it to the guy that had come to the door and told them they'd have to leave if they didn't pay for another night.

There was no more money so they'd have to leave the room tomorrow morning, but Dad had the car so they couldn't sleep in there. Dean wasn't sure where he was going to take Sammy. He knew he should call Pastor Jim to come and get them but he wasn't going to.

There was only one reason to call Pastor Jim and that was if Dad was gone. Dad wasn't gone. Not like Mommy. He was going to come back and they had to be here when he did so that Dad could find them.

Sammy's tiny hand on his shoulder pulled Dean back from his worries. "Dean hungry too?" Sammy asked when Dean didn't say anything.

"Nah. I'm fine. Don't you worry, Sammy. I'll find you something really yummy to eat tomorrow. How about some milk for now?"

Sammy nodded eagerly.

"Okay," Dean replied, "But only if you promise to go to sleep after you drink it."

"I will. After a story."

"A story?" Dean looked at his little brother like he'd sprouted a second head.

Before Mommy was killed Dad had told him bedtime stories, but that was all over before Sammy could talk. Dean had never told Sammy a story in his life. He didn't have any good ones to tell and those fairytales Dad had told him before the fire were a bunch of crap. There were no happy endings.

The only stories he knew where true ones. Stories about the things in the dark that kept him up at night with a gun under his pillow. If he didn't keep watch while Dad was gone something could come after Sammy like it had Mommy. He never wanted Sammy to know that. He never wanted Sammy to know anything he knew. He sure wasn't going to tell him stories about it.

"I don't have any stories."

"No silly Dean," Sammy giggled. "I wanna tell you a story."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks so much for the reviews! I've been lurking here for quite a while, but this is my first time posting Supernatural fan fiction so it's fantastic to hear what folks think. The majority of this story is already written and the first portion only needs a final edit on the chapters so it won't be long between chapter posts. Thanks for reading!  
**

* * *

_Outside of Jordan Valley, Oregon  
_

Nearly a continent worth of driving later they hit the eastern edge of the Oregon border. Sam would have thought that at the very least the drive would have given him a chance to figure out where Dean's head was at. Yet they couldn't have that much further to go and if anything Sam was only more confused about why they were out here.

Any time he asked about the case Dean had remained vague at best. The really annoying part was not just that Dean wasn't telling him anything but that he was doing it in a way that made Sam feel like he was the one that had this messed up in his head. No matter how much Dean wanted to twist this, Sam knew he wasn't the crazy one here.

By the time a lone gas station finally came into view Sam was about ready to throttle his brother. If he did that though it would mean he'd have to keep driving and after twelve straight hours behind the wheel he was more than happy at the prospect of letting Dean drive again.

"How much longer?" Sam asked.

It didn't really matter. They'd get there when they got there. The question was more just an excuse to wake Dean up. They hadn't talked much for a while and given that Dean required constant entertaining when he was awake, his brother must have been sleeping. Despite that assumption Dean answered instantly.

"If you keep driving? Four years."

Sam ignored his brother's griping as he stepped out of the car into the morning sun to flex his stiff legs. Dean likewise climbed from the car and stretched before leaning back against the vehicle and looking out over the area. There was literally nothing here aside from passing cars that were trying to get through here to somewhere else.

"If I take over, maybe eight hours," Dean continued. "We can cut over to Route 20 in fifty miles or so." His brother's eyes suddenly narrowed as he turned to look at Sam. "Don't give me that look."

"What look?"

"The 'this is a huge, freakin' waste of time' look."

Sam raised his hands in surrender. He didn't wake Dean up to argue with him, he just wanted to not be driving for a while. "I didn't say anything."

"Actually, you've said plenty."

"Yeah, but I give up." Sam turned fully to face his brother and rested his arms on the top of the car while he stared at Dean. "We've been driving for over thirty hours straight, Dean. I think it's pretty obvious that if we don't find anything in Green Bay I'm going to have to kill you. What else is there to say?"

"Alrighty then," Dean replied dismissively. His brother rubbed his hands together as he looked excitedly towards the gas station. "Lets get some breakfast."

"Here? Seriously?"

Sam turned to give a wary look to the dilapidated pit stop they were parked out in front of. This was probably one of the grimiest looking excuses for a gas station he'd ever seen and considering their lifestyle that was saying a lot. He could feel a wicked case of botulism coming on just from looking at the place.

A bag of potato chips, a candy bar – either would likely be ten years old at least but probably wouldn't kill a person. But Dean didn't get that hungry glint in his eyes by thinking of just fried potatoes and sugar. Sam didn't even want to know what form of meat Dean hoped to scrounge out of the place.

"I'm not sure about their gas, let alone eating their food."

"Oh there's no way in hell we're getting gas here," Dean assured him.

Sam made a face but didn't bother to seek any reason in his brother's statement. "Right...you go ahead."

"Probably a good call. The thought of you after a Mega Carne Burrito...." Dean just cringed before turning and waving Sam off. "Stuff of nightmares, Sammy. At least use the little girl's room while we're here," he called back towards him. "I'm not pulling over later."

Sam just scoffed at him. He'd say he was going to find a tree before he walked into this place's bathroom but he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a tree. They were in the dead middle of nowhere surrounded by what seemed to be a hundred miles of sagebrush.

Still stunned that they were even related, he watched his insane brother disappear through the squeaky gas station door. Finally he saw the off color sign that had enticed his brother into the dump. That burrito sign was probably older than Dean himself.

He still couldn't get a read on Dean. At the drop of a dime his brother kept switching between acting completely, annoyingly normal and weirdly quiet. Sam wasn't sure whether he should be irritated as hell or worried sick.

Through the dirty windows Sam could just make out Dean leaning over the counter no doubt trying some lines on the poor girl behind it. She was probably the daughter of some guy out back with a shotgun. They were leaving here in five minutes and Dean still couldn't put it away long enough to buy some garbage.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Sam finally gave up and headed for the bathroom. By the time he got back Dean was still inside. He thought he was going to have to go in after his idiot brother when the gas station door finally opened again. Dean came strutting out with a wide grin and a heaping bag of things that no doubt only his brother would consider nourishing food.

"Let's hit the road," Dean said as he hopped into the driver's seat.

By the time Sam had settled in beside his brother Dean was munching on the nastiest looking burrito Sam had ever seen. Or smelled. "You know, it's amazing you ever survived to become an adult," Sam told him.

It was subtle, but as Dean changed his focus to the road ahead his expression became more serious. Sam thought he'd imagined it until he also heard the same shift in Dean's tone.

"Yeah, guess so."

* * *

_The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay, Oregon – 1987  
_

Dean poured the last of the milk into one of the motel's complementary plastic cups. The milk smelled kind of funny but Sammy never seemed to notice. He put the empty carton back into the room's mini-fridge before retuning to Sammy's bed where his little brother enthusiastically accepted the cup.

While Dean was a little wary about what Sammy was going to tell him, he was even more curious. He wasn't sure what kind of story Sammy would have come up with. Crawling back up on the bed, he nestled down cross-legged in front of Sammy.

"Okay, so what's your story?"

Sammy gulped the milk for a moment longer before looking up at his big brother. "I saw a ghost!" he proudly declared.

"No you didn't," Dean replied instantly.

He didn't need to wait for an explanation from his little brother. There was no way he even wanted to think that Sammy might have actually seen something. Besides, he'd been here the whole time and he would have known if there was something here.

"Did so," Sammy insisted.

"On TV?"

"TV not real, Dean. You said so."

"I know and I'm always right, huh?" Sammy nodded in agreement. "That's right, but where'd you see a ghost then?" It's not like Sammy had picture books like Dean used to have and they hadn't left the room for days so that only left the TV.

"The ghost, he at the dark building because he could not go," Sammy began as if he'd been rehearsing his little speech for hours. "Daddy go walk and...and uh, the ghost, he see me because I see him and I wave..." Sammy waved his hand to demonstrate before continuing. "Because he lonely."

Dean straightened on the bed as he stared at his little brother. He remembered Sammy waving next to him in the back seat of the car like he saw someone when Dad had stopped at that creepy place on the way into town. Sometimes Sammy just did weird stuff that didn't make any sense. When they'd been in the car he'd thought maybe his brother had been waving for Dad to come back.

"What'd he look like?"

"Like you."

Dean couldn't stop the surprise from showing on his face. "Like...like me? Like he was me?"

"No, he not you. He tall like you..."

Sammy raised his hand to indicate how tall he thought the ghost was. Dean nodded in understanding.

"He was a boy like me?" Sammy's excited expression told him that he'd guessed right. "Did he say anything to you?"

Sammy shook his head. "I think he play in mud because his clothes dirty. He sad. Will you help him, Dean?" he asked with a big pout.

"You were just dreaming, Sammy. I saw you sleeping in the car while we were there," Dean lied. "I'm sure when he got cleaned up the boy in your dream was happy again."

"When he got all the red stuff off," Sammy agreed.

"Sure," Dean replied distantly as he took the empty cup back from Sammy. "Go to sleep now. Okay?"

* * *

_The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay, Oregon - 2007  
_

"Sammy, wake up!"

Sam jolted up so fast in his seat that he almost hit his head on the roof of the car. He quickly looked for the fire, but all he saw was his brother smirking beside him. Dean had no idea how much he wasn't in the mood for this.

"Jerk."

"You were the one that wouldn't wake up, Bitch."

The gloating expression suddenly left Dean's face as his wicked chuckle turned into a cough. Sam's annoyance dissipated as he saw Dean cringe.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm great. Just got something stuck in my throat."

"It's probably your brains," Sam replied after he was sure that Dean was all right. "Where are we?"

"Here. I already checked us in," Dean replied as he tossed Sam's room key at him. "Deb seems real nice...I think we're going to be wanting some room service tonight if you know what I mean."

Rolling his eyes, Sam pushed open his car door. The first thing he noticed was that the trees were back, but he stopped at the sight of the motel. He was a little surprised to find himself looking at a more than decent looking building. Nice even. There was no way his brother had actually picked this place out to stay.

"Is this the only place in town?"

"Not even close, but it's the only one with two digit room rates. Most of the town is a coastal resort – we're living like the rich people, Sammy. Now come on, we've got work to do," Dean said as he slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the room.

With an annoyed glare at his brother, Sam grabbed his own bag and followed Dean. It was only late afternoon so they still had plenty of time before nightfall. "So we're hitting the sanitarium tonight?"

"Not tonight."

"Isn't that why we're here?"

"To play haunted house? No. We're here to stop this thing. Another kid and his dad are in the hospital."

"Did Deb tell you that?"

"Deb doesn't know anything...except our room number. I heard it on the radio."

"Since when do you listen to news radio?"

"I'll have you know I'm a very concerned citizen."

Sam stopped in the doorway before following Dean into the motel room. "Is there something else you want to tell me?"

His brother just looked confused as he glanced over his shoulder at him. "No. Why?"

"Nothing..." Sam replied after a moment of silence. "So you want to go to the hospital?"

"I sure do and I need you to hack into the coroner records or whatever it is that you pretend to do with that computer of yours."

"Dean, I'm going with you."

"No you're not. I don't need your help to do a couple of interviews and I'm willing to bet that there is something about those bodies that tie these people together."

"We don't know that anything's happening here so these poor families don't need you harassing them."

"I don't harass."

"Yes, you do."

"Fine. Come. And it's one family," Dean corrected.

"Both the new victims are from the same family?" Dean nodded and Sam was once again ready to strangle him. "That's just another thing that doesn't fit. Why do you think they're even related?"

"They're missing buckets of blood. Same as the others."

"All the victims were missing large quantities of blood? When were you going to mention that?"

"I did...didn't I?"

"No, Dean, no you didn't. When we left Illinois you said it was just a feeling."

Dean shrugged. "In Illinois it was. I just found out about the blood. Come on Agent...'Panozzo'," his brother said as seemingly pulled an ID at random from his pocket and handed it to Sam. "Let's go meet the locals."


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks again for the reviews! For you hurt Dean hopefuls, there's plenty of mentally and physically hurting Dean coming up soon. We'll just make sure to get protective Sam nice and riled up first...**

* * *

_Green Bay General Hospital_

As far as hospitals went this one was quaint. It was upscale, but small – more like a glorified grouping of doctor's offices. The kind of place that was far more accustomed to dealing with tourists that fell off their bikes rather than actual emergencies.

It was enough to make Sam feel all the more guilty that he was going to let Dean subject the staff and patients to pointless questioning. He sent one more warning glare towards his brother as they walked up to the front desk, but Dean was already locked in on his target.

"Hi there. I'm Agent Shaw and this is Agent Panozzo. We're here with the CDC," Dean told the young woman at the front desk with barely visible flash of his phony ID.

"The CDC?"

The answer didn't come from the woman at the desk in front of them, but from behind them. Sam and his brother both turned to face the older woman who was now staring at them. One hand held a clipboard while the other rested on her hip. By the look of disbelief on her face Sam was pretty sure that they were screwed. That was until he saw her expression melt into relief.

"Yeah that's right," Dean replied.

"Incredible. I mean, no offense, but I wasn't expecting a return call let alone agents arriving the next day." She approached them, but stopped to look them over for a moment. "If you don't mind my saying, they're hiring them young aren't they?"

Sam and Dean glanced at each other before Dean answered. "Yeah, well, you caught us," he said with a flash of an excessively charming grin. "This is our first assignment and they weren't really going to look into it. But Panozzo here, he just loves the ocean and we could really use a chance to get our hands dirty."

With gritted his teeth Sam resisted the urge to elbow his brother in the side. Even if he had been raised into it, Dean had to have been born with a brain defect to be able to lie as easily has he did. It was necessary as far as getting them into places, but if Dean didn't stop laying it on so heavy this lady was really going to put them to work.

"Regardless, I greatly appreciate you agents coming out. I'm Dr. Hammond," she said as she extended her hand to them. "I'm the lead doctor here at the hospital. What have they told you so far about our situation?"

Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Sam realized this was finally a chance to get some straight answers about the deaths here. "Honestly, we really didn't get the full briefing so maybe you could fill us in on the specifics and we could look into it from there," Sam replied with a raised brow glance towards Dean.

"Of course. We can talk in my office, but I'm going to have warn you – this is going to sound crazy."

"We live for crazy," Dean assured her.

As much as Sam was hoping to use this as an opportunity to prove to Dean this wasn't their sort of case, he could tell that his brother had the exact opposite intention. Dean didn't even wait until they made it down the hall before going to work.

"There have been six cases plus the two new ones today, right?"

"As of right now, yes, that's right," she replied to Dean who instantly shot Sam a 'told you so' look behind the doctor's back. "I know it doesn't sound like something of epidemic proportions, but we just don't get this sort of thing here. We really aren't equipped to deal with something like this if the number of cases grows."

They followed the doctor into her office and settled into the chairs she motioned them towards. Sam still couldn't believe that there was anyway Dean was right about this.

"What exactly do you think 'this' is?" Sam asked. "From the reports, the causes of death don't match. How do you know the deaths are related?"

"I admit, on the surface they look completely unrelated, however, in all cases it was just that the weakest system in their body failed first. I attended to these patients myself. I have no doubt that there was an underlying disease that killed these people. The timeframe, the initial symptoms and the rapid degeneration were all the same."

The doctor moved a pile of patient folders to the center of her desk for them to see. Sam began thumbing through the folders. At this point he no longer doubted that these deaths were connected, but what he didn't know was how Dean had known. More importantly, he still wasn't seeing anything that suggested whatever demonic story Dean had made up for this town.

"As you can see," the doctor continued, "The problem is that we haven't been able to identify the disease so the causes of death are currently labeled as unique events until our tests find something conclusive. We could really use additional resources to assist with the testing."

"Sure," Dean replied smoothly. "You can send your samples along to our lab. In the meantime we need to talk with the newest patients and their family. We'll also need the contact information for the families of the deceased. Then we can get to work."

"I'd hate for them to have to go through any more than they've already been through, but if you think it could help..."

"We need to check on every lead if we're going to stop this thing."

"I agree completely. Excuse me, Nurse Hess," the doctor called towards a young woman who walked by the office. "These two young men are with the CDC. Could you please take them to see the Simmons?"

"Of course, Doctor. Please come this way," the nurse said to Sam and Dean.

Before Dean even opened his mouth Sam knew the young, blond nurse perfectly fit Dean's fantasy version of what every nurse should be. He had to admit that he was doing some admiring himself, but at least he could work and drool at the same time. Unlike his brother.

"She doesn't have to tell me twice," Dean whispered to Sam as they left the office.

Sam did his best to ignore his gloating brother until they made it to the small pediatric ward. Then he was back to ready to kill Dean. The little boy in the hospital bed was alone. His mother must be with his father and Dean had obviously caught on to that.

"I'm going to talk to the son, but my partner, he'd really like talk to the father if that's okay."

Sam glared at his brother who had sworn they were going to stick together here. "I think talking to the father can wait until after we talk to the son," Sam replied pointedly.

"I don't think it's necessary to waste any more of this family's time than we have to," Dean shot back smugly.

Not being in a position to make a scene, Sam reluctantly waved Dean towards the boy's room and looked to the nurse. "Yeah...if you could take me to Mr. James Simmons, we can get out of your way."

Though he said it to the nurse, the last part was really a warning to his brother. He didn't know whether or not Dean heard him because his brother's attention was fully on the boy by the time Sam was leaving with the nurse.

* * *

_The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay Oregon - 1987_

Dean sat huddled on his bed staring into the dark with his knees hugged to his chest. He hadn't bothered to pull down the covers, change out of his clothes or even slip off his shoes. There was no way he could sleep. He wanted to watch TV, but he was afraid it would wake up Sammy.

He didn't know what to think about what Sammy had told him and the more he thought about it the more worried he got. Maybe Sammy had seen a ghost and maybe it was what Dad was hunting and maybe it was why Dad wasn't here. What if it had Dad and was going to come for Sammy next?

In the darkness of the room he could just barely make out the small, still form of his sleeping brother snuggled under the covers. He wasn't going to let anything take Sammy away like it had taken Mommy.

Sliding off the bed, Dean walked quietly to the closet. He had seen Dad hiding stuff up on the shelf in there when they'd first checked into the motel. Reaching up, he turned on the light switch in the bathroom and cracked the door to let a little light into the main room, but not enough to bother Sammy.

Trying to be quiet, he dragged a chair over to the closet. Even standing on it he still just barely couldn't reach the top shelf. He was getting frustrated when he saw the pile of towels in the bathroom through the crack in the door.

Slipping through the bathroom door, he came back out with the pile of big, white fluffy towels and piled them up on the chair. Bracing himself against the edge of the closet he climbed up onto the wobbly pile and snatched a hold of the dangling strap from Dad's bag. Everything seemed fine until he realized how heavy the bag was.

The bag came off the top shelf just fine, but Dean went tumbling to the floor with it. He landed flat on his back beside the bag. As he tried to recover the breath that had been knocked out of him he heard Sammy call out.

"Daddy?"

Quickly Dean shoved the dislodged contents back into the bag and scrambled to his feet. He hurried around the corner but his momentary relief was shattered when he saw that Sammy wasn't actually talking to Dad. His brother was just looking at him.

"It's just me, Sammy."

"What doing?"

"Getting some stuff. Go back to sleep."

"Me help."

"No." Dean thought for a moment before changing his mind. "Okay...maybe." He forgot about the bag for a moment and instead walked the rest of way back to Sammy's bed. "Tell me some more about that boy you dreamed about."

* * *

_Outside the Green Bay General Hospital – 2007_

"The father didn't see anything," Sam told Dean as they made it back to the Impala.

"The kid did."

Why was Sam not surprised? With as long as Dean had been talking to the boy Dean could have talked the kid into thinking anything. He was pretty sure that his brother didn't even know that he was doing it half the time, but Dean was a king manipulator. If he was stuck enough on something Dean would just keep forcing the facts until they fit. He knew he shouldn't have left Dean alone in there.

Dean must be able to tell that he was ignoring him, but he obviously didn't care because he went on talking. "He saw a boy covered in blood – oh yeah, and he was transparent. That's normal."

"Being sick is scary. Some kids have active imaginations."

"This was real."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because it was, okay?"

The intensity in Dean's eyes was enough to make Sam drop that line of questioning. "Say that it was, what does it mean? You heard the doctors. These people are just sick. I talked to the nurse. The blood loss story was just something picked up out of context by some over imaginative reporter trying to make this into more than it is."

"Like me."

"That's not what I meant. It's weird and the cases are probably connected, like the doctor said, but I just think this might really be more of a problem for the actual CDC."

"The boy in the hospital has two other siblings, neither are sick. And what about the fact that at least two of the other kids that died, probably all the kids, saw spirits associated with this?"

"And you know that because..."

"It was in the newspaper article."

"Dean, I read the article. All it said was that the boys were hallucinating."

"About the same thing. In our experience how many of the people who get locked up in nut houses are actually the only ones who know what's really going on? A damn lot of them. Even if they are just sick, that doesn't mean something's not latching onto that."

"Maybe...but maybe the healthy kids didn't see anything and we're just dealing with a death omen here. It's too late to talk to the other families tonight. You missed lunch. Come on, let's go grab some dinner."

"Nah, I'm good. You go ahead," Dean said as he tossed the Impala keys to him.

Sam was so caught off guard by the action that he almost missed them. He stared at the keys before looking at Dean like he was insane, because he obviously was. There was no way that Dean was just willingly leaving the car with him.

"What? Where are you going?"

"I've got some stuff to check on and I don't need you hanging over my shoulder to do it."

Something was seriously off here. Dean never went out of his way to ditch him unless he was worried about something or about to do something seriously stupid. The more he watched Dean, the less sure he was that his brother even looked like he felt that great.

Maybe it was just the angle of the outside building lights but Dean's face was wickedly pale. When Sam's eyes moved down to Dean's throat he saw that his brother kept swallowing awkwardly. That might explain why Dean's voice sounded strangely rough.

"Still got something stuck in your throat?"

Dean must have caught the concerned expression on Sam's face because he shrugged him off. "Dude, you need to chill out. Go find some hot chick to take back to the room. Just make sure to hang the 'do not disturb' sign. I totally don't want to walk in on you loosing your virginity."

Without waiting for Sam to decide how he wanted to respond, Dean shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to head down the street leaving behind the Impala and his very bewildered brother. No matter how much he wanted to, Sam knew there was no point in following Dean. His brother had obviously already made up his mind and then some. Sam's only option was to try to figure out on his own what was really going on here.


	4. Chapter 4

**You folks are fantastic! And to think that I'd been shy about sharing - thank you everyone for your wonderful comments. It really helps to hear that some of the things I wasn't so sure about were coming off well.  
**

**And yes, I was listening to the ever awesome 'Renegade' when I had been working on the start of the last chapter so I figured it only right to give a nod to Styx there. I remembered them using DeYoung for an FBI persona in 'The Monster at the End of this Book', but had forgotten that Shaw was the other one they'd used there - we'll just have to say that Dean particularly enjoyed Tommy Shaw's guitar work.  
**

* * *

Dean had lied. Or at the very least gotten his facts seriously mixed up. Sam had scoured every online record he could find and there was nothing that suggested the old _Krobath_ sanitarium was scheduled to be demolished. The building had been condemned in the mid eighties, but the land was outside the city limits and apparently not worth the cost of developing.

As far as anything that would have triggered angry spirits around the place, it was possible something had happened, but there wasn't any information online about the patients that had been housed there. The place had been shut down long before the concept of online records had ever been cooked up. The county should have the hardcopies, but there's no way Dean could have got the information by randomly searching the internet. Especially since he sucked at it.

Sam realized that at some point between cursing Dean for being an idiot liar and worrying himself sick about what his brother was really up to, the sun had breached the horizon. His tired eyes glanced down to the clock at the corner of his computer screen. Seven in the morning and Dean hadn't so much as bothered to call to let him know that he was okay.

Enough was enough. He was done listening to Dean's cell phone message system over and over. It was time to start scouring the town for his brother. For some strange reason Dean had left the car with him so it wasn't like his brother could have gotten that far.

He was shutting down the laptop when he heard a key turn in the room's lock. Standing, he crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for the door to open. As it did Dean slipped through like he thought he could sneak in without Sam noticing.

His brother almost had the door shut before he realized he was being watched. If Dean was that far off his game he obviously hadn't been off sleeping somewhere. When Dean looked up at him Sam saw that he looked as beat as Sam assumed. He also looked guilty as hell.

"Up already?" Dean asked nonchalantly.

"Where have you been?" Sam asked with obvious irritation that Dean chose to ignore.

"Out." When Sam looked unsatisfied with the lack of a real answer Dean switched from evasive to his other favorite defense mechanism. "Look, I know it's past my curfew, but she was really hot...and a gymnast. Promise it won't happen again."

Dean tried to walk past him, but Sam grabbed his jacket to stop him. He tried to get Dean to look at him but his brother wouldn't meet his eyes. Sam hadn't been imagining it last night. Dean just flat out looked terrible. He was ever bit as pale as Sam had thought and now there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.

"I've been up all night," Sam told him as he tried to keep his voice steady.

Dean was in full avoidance mode and right now obviously didn't have any problem with taking off without a word. The last thing he wanted was for Dean to bolt again.

Finally Dean shot him a perplexed look. "How's that my fault?"

"I was waiting up for you."

Dean chuckled at first but then his face fell as he realized Sam was serious. "Since when?" Dean slapped Sam's hand off of him. "Dude, I'm twenty-eight. Dad didn't wait up for me when I was eight."

"He sure as hell should have." As soon as the words left his mouth he knew that the bitter tone he'd said them with would set Dean off. "Dean..."

Sam didn't really think there was any need to apologize. He just knew that Dean would want him to. Even if what he had said was true. Dad shouldn't have just dumped them wherever was convenient and moved them when it suited him.

He got what Dad had been trying to do, he really did, but if Dad hadn't wanted them he should have just left them where they could have been kids and not burdens that were just too young to fight yet. He should have left them with someone that wouldn't have just pawned their youngest off on their eldest and who would have actually taken care of them. Both of them. Someone that wouldn't have taken advantage of their sons and so purposefully screwed up Dean's head.

Before he could formulate his token attempt at an apology Dean had him backed into the wall. "Say another word about Dad and I seriously will kick your ass."

By the look in Dean's eyes Sam didn't doubt it. It wasn't that he cared about Dean laying into him. Right now he was pretty sure he could take him anyway. He was just worried about his brother who looked about as good as his hitched breaths sounded.

"Now stop worrying," Dean said as he backed away from Sam. "It's my job."

Dean moved past him, slipped off his jacket and tossed it onto the bed. Sam was left by himself as Dean disappeared into the bathroom. His brother wasn't going to get him off his back that easily. Especially since he could hear him coughing in there even over the sound of the faucet running on full.

"Don't give me that crap, Dean," Sam called to him. "Like you have some kind of patent on worrying."

There was a long silence before Dean called back hoarsely over the running water. "Some kind of what?"

"Never mind. Why wouldn't you answer your phone?"

His brother looked genuinely baffled when he stepped from the bathroom and looked at Sam. "Did you call?" he asked as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

He looked at it for a moment before shrugging. "Huh," Dean remarked with a furrowed brow. "I just charged this piece of crap yesterday. Last time you pick out the phones. Battery's dead." He tossed the phone to Sam as proof. "Seriously. Why aren't you asleep?"

"Seriously, I've been too busy wondering if you got yourself killed doing something stupid."

"Geez, Sam. You're going to give yourself a stroke. Relax already. I just met a girl. Really."

It was a lie and a bad one. If Dean had really hooked up with someone for the night, it wouldn't be unusual but he would have been either gloating or complaining and he sure wouldn't be looking guilty about it. His brother wasn't one to keep his mouth shut and he wasn't one to not tell Sam where he was when they were on a case.

"Where?"

Dean's eyes searched the room and he scratched his head before answering. "At the bar."

"What bar?"

"The bar. Who cares? It's not like she had a sister."

"Have you said one honest word since we left Illinois?" The total exasperation in Sam's tone stopped Dean's pacing in its tracks, but only for a moment.

"I'm tired. Get off my back."

"Not until you tell me what's really going on."

"Fine! I talked to some people then I went back to the hospital. Is that all right with you?" He walked away again before plopping down on the edge of the bed facing away from Sam.

There were a lot of things that Sam had half expected to come out of Dean's mouth, but that sure wasn't one of them. He watched Dean's shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths as his brother stared at the wall. Dean going back to the hospital made about the least sense of anything he could think of. The only thing that made less sense was why Dean wouldn't want him to know about it.

"Why would you go back to the hospital?"

"Jimmy died."

The words came out abruptly and from Dean's tone it didn't sound so much like an answer to the question as it did a confession. Obviously if Dean's phone wasn't working Dean hadn't gone to the hospital because he'd gotten a call about it. His brother would have had to already been there when it happened.

"The father?"

"Both of them. Jimmy junior and senior. Colleen...uh, Mrs...Ms. Simmons...one night and her family is just gone. She has her two little girls and now their dad is dead...and their brother. Colleen just wasn't up to dealing with it. Shouldn't have to. This whole thing is just a steaming pile of crap."

Sam let out a heavy breath as he walked over to sit down on the bed next to Dean. This wasn't like him. Sometimes when kids were involved his brother got strange about things for some reason Sam didn't get. Sure it was hard – they were just kids and deserved to live their lives, but it was different for Dean somehow. He doubted the father component was helping anything, but there had to be something more to this. Right now Dean looked seriously rough.

"It was good of you to stay with her."

"Whole hell of a lot of good it did. I came here to save her family, not to help with the god damn funeral arrangements," Dean huffed as he pushed himself off the bed and started pacing the room again. Sam stood up too, but kept his distance.

"I'm sorry, Dean. There's some things even we can't stop."

Abruptly his brother turned to look at him. "Well, we're stopping this. We're hitting the sanitarium tonight. We have to talk to the families and I've got some other leads we need to follow up on now."

"Now?" There was a lot Sam felt like he should say, but he knew he had to be delicate about this or his brother would just go shooting off without him again.

"Nah, we don't have to go now. We can wait until some other poor kid dies first."

"You know that's not what I meant. I just think you need to get some rest before tonight." He looked Dean over again before finally asking, "Are you sick?"

"You'd like that wouldn't you? You could play Nurse Ratchet. You'd be perfect for the part."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Not sick in the head. I already know that. I mean how do you feel?"

"How do I feel?" Dean gave him a look like he'd asked him what color of women underwear he was wearing. "You mean...no. No, I'm not sick, Sam. I'm just tired." He ran his hand over his face. "Damn tired."

"How about you let me take care of the leads?"

Dean was obviously at least as worn out as he looked, probably more so, because he seemed to be reluctantly considering Sam's suggestion. Still he shook his head. "No. I should do this."

"Why, Dean? Why do you have to do everything on this case?" When Dean didn't reply, he couldn't stop himself from prying further. "I know they're not demolishing the sanitarium." The expression on Dean's face didn't change. "But you knew that. Didn't you?"

"Yeah...I kinda made that part up."

Sam's eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of what Dean was telling him. "I trusted you on this. Why would you lie to me about a stupid building demolition?"

"Oh come on, Sam. It wasn't like that." He made a face that suggested he was having as much trouble justifying this to himself as he was to Sam. "Lie it's...such a harsh word. I just...I didn't know how else to get you out here and it's not like I could just leave you in Pennsylvania with those freaky ass airplanes."

Sam raised his brows. Dean still wasn't making any sense, but it didn't really matter at this point. He wanted to tell Dean that if he'd wanted him out here the truth would have been a good start, but he kept his mouth shut about it for now.

"Okay. So we're here now. Just tell me what's really going on."

"I don't know what's going on." Sam threw him a skeptical look. "What? I don't! Don't you think I would've just stopped it if I did?"

"Well, yeah, but you drug me out here and you knew these deaths were related. Obviously you know something."

"I know people are dying. I know something's killing them and that it's tied into that sanitarium. I just don't know what it is. It was just something I read in Dad's journal. This has happened before. Just like it is now. Eight people are dead and four more are going to die. But that's all I got."

He was pretty much a hundred percent sure that Dean was still holding back. If that was all there was there was no reason Dean wouldn't have just told him that to begin with. Or maybe there was. If Dean had told him this in Illinois he would have just told Dean to stop scouring Dad's journals for any reason to get away from Pennsylvania. That they could deal with this case after the planes.

Maybe that was it, maybe there was something else but pushing Dean further away wasn't going to get him to open up about whatever else he might be hiding. He seriously wasn't letting Dean come with him though. His brother looked like he was ready to drop as it was.

"If you don't know then I can look into it as well as you can."

There was a long hesitation but Dean finally nodded. "Okay. Fine. We need to find out what the kids saw and we need records. Lots of them. I think this thing goes back a good long time."

"You think we'll find a pattern."

"Yeah, I do...I think that's why Dad was here. I also think there's a mark on those bodies. I saw one on Jimmy."

"What kind of mark?"

"I don't know. It was some kind of symbol maybe? I just got a flash of it when they were moving the body. I couldn't make it out, but it sure as hell wasn't natural."

"Alright. I'll visit the families, check the county death records and swing by the morgue. While you sleep," he told Dean with a poignant look.

He slipped on his jacket, but stopped before heading out the door and turned back to his brother. Dean was staring off at something and Sam was suddenly reluctant to leave him alone.

"Dean."

His brother refocused on the room and looked towards him. "Yeah, Sammy?"

"If something was wrong, you'd tell me, right?"

"Course I would. You're my little brother."

* * *

_The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay, Oregon - 1987_

  
"What doing?" Sammy asked again.

It had to be the twentieth time he'd asked. Dean's little brother, who hadn't gone back to sleep like he'd hoped, was laying on his stomach perched on the edge of the bed looking down at him. His little head tilted as he studied Dean in complete captivation.

"Trying to get this open," Dean told his brother as he tugged at the lid to the container he'd found in Dad's bag.

"What in it?"

Dean looked at the container again. It said S-A-L-T and it looked like the stuff he put on French fries, but this stuff was magical. He didn't really know what it was - he just knew what it did so he shrugged to his brother.

"White stuff."

"Like snow?"

"Kinda, but you can't touch it okay?"

"Hot?"

"Yeah, it's hot, Sammy," Dean agreed.

He was thankful that Sammy had supplied him with a reason that made sense to a three and a half year old. Since Sammy was just a kid it was kind of hard to know what he should say to him. He knew he shouldn't tell him about the monsters, but most other things in their life didn't make much sense without knowing about the scary stuff.

With one last tug, the container popped open making a messy dusting all over the center of the motel room floor.

"Damn it," Dean cursed under his breath as brushed the salt off of him.

"Careful, Dean, it hot," Sammy warned anxiously. He scrambled to a seated position but remained on the bed that Dean had told him to stay in.

"Yeah, I got it," he replied as he stood up and ground the crystals into the carpet with his shoe.

He knew the stuff wouldn't hurt him. It was just bad things that it burned. If it was really hot, he wouldn't touch it. He knew what hot things did.

Taking the container of salt, Dean dragged the chair over to the window so he could reach the windowsill. Carefully he poured the salt onto the ledge and then in a ring in front of the door that left enough room so that he could still open the door enough to get out.

"You can't open the door for _anyone_, Sammy."

"What 'bout you and Daddy?"

"Not even us. We got keys so we don't need to knock. Okay? This is really important."

"Okay. Can I get off bed?"

"No."

"What if I have to go potty?" Sammy asked with a pout.

Dean mentally kicked himself. Sammy did really good listening to him and he would have felt really bad if he'd stayed on the bed when he had to go to the bathroom. Sammy wasn't so good at making it to the bathroom as it was. He'd had to clean up after his little brother plenty of times before so he should have thought of that after giving him so much milk to drink.

"Sure. That's okay. But then you get right back into bed. Got it?"

"Got it," Sammy replied in a mimicked version of Dean's tone.

"Awesome. And you remember how I showed you to use the phone?" Sammy nodded. "And you got those special numbers?"

Sammy pointed to the piece of paper on the bed stand next to the phone. "Jimmy numbers."

"That's right. I'm going to try to be back really soon, but if I'm not...you call Pastor Jim."


	5. Chapter 5

**I'll go ahead and post this next chapter today too since it's already finished. This was actually the first chapter I wrote for the story, which was originally a little fluff piece about Sam and Dean arguing about whether they got sick days and Sam getting his chance to take care of Dean.**

* * *

Sam rolled his eyes as he reached for the motel room's doorknob. 'Highway to Hell' was blaring from inside the room. At this rate they were going to get kicked out of this actually nice motel before he could convince Dean that there was no case here. At least not one that they could do anything about.

There hadn't been any strange marks that he could find on the bodies that were still in the morgue or the funeral home. What he thought was going to be an easy perusal through the county's death records had turned into a nightmare. Sure there had been deaths here over the years. Plenty of them.

It turned out half the town was a retirement community. Even if he ignored the deaths of anyone over sixty-five it still wasn't as if there was any particular type of death he could look for. Dean could be right and twelve of the annual deaths could be attributed to something that shouldn't be here, but there was no way of telling which ones. And then there were the families.

The college student had been an only child to a single mother – no kids to check with there. The computer guy had been single as far as he could tell and the farmer left behind a wife and twenty year old daughter that was off at school. The two really young kids had been only children, which only left one boy who'd had a younger brother with parents that wouldn't let Sam anywhere near their traumatized son. If anyone had seen anything out of the ordinary, no one was talking.

While he hadn't come up with anything useful, he'd driven back and forth around town enough today to see that Dean was right about one thing. Every other spot in this town was high scale meaning that even if they wanted to blow the credit, they'd stick out like sore thumbs.

While he knew Dean was having a rough time with this, if Dean couldn't manage to keep it together they were going to end up sleeping in the car and they'd already done enough of that this week. He didn't want to hear anymore whining about a stiff neck and cramped legs. More importantly, he didn't want those cramped legs to be his own.

"Turn it down, Dean," Sam said automatically as he walked into the room.

Dean was ignoring him. Big surprise. It wouldn't kill his brother to pretend to be an adult at least some of the time. He didn't exactly enjoying being Dean's mother. Sure Dean had always been the one looking after him and he'd do anything for Dean but there was a big difference between looking out for his brother when he really needed it and babysitting. They were both theoretically grown ups and he wasn't sure how he'd been elected the responsible one.

"What have you been doing in here?" he asked Dean as he dropped his bag on the table. His nose wrinkled as he took in another deep breath. "This place reeks, man."

Turning to look at his brother he suddenly noticed that it wasn't that Dean was ignoring him. Dean just flat out hadn't heard him. It was then that he realized the bass of the retro MTV music videos were covering up a seriously nasty hacking cough. The television's remote lay forgotten on the floor and Dean was doubled over at the edge of the bed like he was struggling to catch his breath.

Sam quickly closed the distance between them, put a hand on Dean's shoulder and nearly got decked for it as Dean jumped up swinging. "Sam? What the hell?" Dean rasped. "Where'd you come from?"

"The door..." he told Dean with worried eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Oh I'm just freakin' super," Dean grumbled as he pulled the edges of his jacket tightly around himself.

"You're cold?" he asked doubtfully.

"It's freezing in here," Dean replied as he sat back down on the bed. Without saying anything further he propped his elbows up on his knees and held his head in his hands.

Dean was obviously not in the mood to hear any differing opinions, but Sam had only been in the room for thirty seconds and he was already starting to sweat. He took off his own jacket as he walked over to the thermostat. It was cranked up as high as it would go and it wasn't broken - the baseboard was cranking out the heat. He shot a look to Dean, but his brother was still staring at the floor.

Leaving the thermostat where it was for now, Sam hit the power button on the television as he walked by. He stood at the end of the bed staring at Dean and waiting for some sort of explanation as to what he was missing here. When Dean still said nothing, he walked past his brother, which finally triggered a response, but not the one he was expecting.

"Watch your step there. I uh...I kinda tossed my cookies all over the floor."

Between the reluctance in Dean's scratchy voice and the fact that his brother wouldn't meet his eyes, Sam could tell that Dean was embarrassed as hell about it, but wasn't about to admit it.

"Projectile style," Dean added in a smart-ass tone as if he realized that he wasn't coming off with the proper degree of tough guy.

"Way too much information," Sam replied, partially playing along with his brother's stupid macho crap, but not enough to tell Dean he had to cleanup the mess. "I'll take care of it."

"No, I got it. Actually, I think we should just call that should be play boy bunny at the front desk and tell her that some drunk broke in. Maybe we can get a free night and a sympathy kiss out of this."

He wasn't sure whether or not to point out to Dean the obvious fact that no one in their right mind was going to kiss him right now.

"Have _you_ been drinking?" he asked as he at least picked up the remote. The tone wasn't so much accusatory, just concerned.

Dean had a tough time last night. Sam had gone and talked to Colleen himself this afternoon. She was a wreck still, but dealing. Mostly she had just gone on and on about how much Dean had been there for her and her kids last night. How he'd helped her and helped with her daughter's nightmare. Her nightmare about a ghost boy.

He could only assume that the girl had overheard Dean with her brother the other day. Or maybe it was something. Really it was the only reason he wasn't dragging Dean kicking and screaming from this town. That and there was obviously something here Dean needed to deal with. For Dean's mental sake Sam was praying that this was something that could be stopped.

All in all he wouldn't blame his brother for having gone a little heavy on the whiskey, but Dean shook his head. "I wish I was, but no. I just feel like crap," his brother replied as he finally lifted his head.

Sam nodded as he looked over his brother's pale face. "You look like crap," he agreed.

The deep concern in his voice would be obvious to anyone that was listening, but as usual, Dean wasn't listening.

"Gee, thanks, Sammy. Always the supportive brother." He looked to the remote in Sam's hand. "That thing's broke."

Sam turned it over in his hands. "It looks okay."

"If it was a stripper that would mean something. I mean it doesn't work."

Dean's voice was still off, but was sounding stronger. The only problem for Dean was that Sam knew when his brother was putting on an act. He could pull his 'I'm fine' routine with anyone else, but not with Sam.

He tested the remote to appease his brother. Nothing happened when he pushed the power button. He shrugged and tossed it onto the bed behind him. "It's probably just the battery. Now stop changing the subject. You really look awful, man, and I don't care what you say - you are sick. We can't do this tonight."

"Are you kidding me?" Dean asked as he forced his posture to straighten. "Whatever this thing is I can take it with my eyes closed."

"That's just the thing, Dean, we don't know what it is that we're dealing with. If we're even dealing with anything. We're calling this one off."

"Like hell we are. I didn't drive all the way out here just to..."

Another bought off coughing cut Dean's protest short. By the grimace that Dean wasn't able to hide, Sam could tell that the cough felt as bad as it sounded.

"You can't hunt like this."

"Watch me," Dean challenged as he straightened back up. "It's not like I can just take a sick day."

"Actually, you can. One of the perks of the gig, right?"

"Sure." Even through the roughness of Dean's voice Sam could clearly make out the thick sarcasm that laced that single word.

"Dean..."

"No, you're totally right, Sam. Instead of killing this thing we can lay around and watch pay per view while another family gets torn apart. Why didn't I think of that? Oh right, because I'm not a selfish moron."

"Dean, you're not killing these people by taking care of yourself. We don't even know that anything is killing them," Sam said once more in the hopes that his brother would actual look at reason this time.

"That's crap and you know it. Something sure as hell is killing these people and it's not just some disease. There's something here, Sam. A spirit at the sanitarium, it's choosing these people. I'm not going to let another family get torn apart because I ate a bad burrito."

"It's not your job to save everyone."

"Maybe not. But it's my job to try isn't it? Besides I'm not going to sit around here and let some stupid cold kick my ass."

"This isn't a cold. I've seen you with a cold, it doesn't even make you blink."

"Thanks for the diagnosis, Dr. Quinn. Maybe I'm just turning into a wuss. Or maybe I really did eat a bad burrito." He winced as his hand moved to his stomach.

"You didn't get that cough from a burrito." Sam glanced down at the mess on the floor between them. "Actually it doesn't look like you ate much at all. Did you throw up earlier?"

"What? No..." Obviously realizing where Sam was going with this, Dean shot him a look. "You're analyzing my vomit." Rolling his eyes Dean collapsed back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. "Awesome."

"There's just not much substance..."

"Is this what they teach you in school? Dude, you're seriously weirding me out! I didn't eat lunch. You happy now?"

"You didn't eat lunch?"

He couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice. Dean loved to eat. Like if he didn't do demon hunting for a living he'd weigh a thousand pounds love to eat.

"You said you were going to grab something when I called you from the school."

"I lied. So what? I've just been feeling sick."

"Since when?"

"Since we hit Oregon."

"That was almost two days ago, Dean. This morning you looked me in the eyes and told me you were fine. Why the sudden problem with the truth?"

Dean didn't reply but Sam was too busy kicking himself to care. He'd been so annoyed that Dean had rushed them out here on a whim and so worried that Dean was acting so strange he hadn't actually been paying attention to Dean himself. He should have noticed that his brother hadn't been eating and now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure that his brother had eaten since that nasty gas station.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"So you could go all mother hen on my ass over nothing? Thanks, but no thanks," Dean grumbled as he sat back up on the bed. "I am fine, Sam. Drop it already."

Sam just shook his head as he disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later he returned with a wet towel. He kneeled on the floor in front of Dean and started cleaning up. He didn't care what Dean thought about it and he didn't care what Dean thought they should do tonight. His brother wasn't in any condition to run out into the shadows if there was really something out there.

"Fine. If you think it's going to be so easy I can take care of this myself."

"Like hell you can."

"What?" Sam asked indignantly as he looked up to Dean. "Like I suddenly can't take care of some vengeful spirits?"

"You could if you believed that's what we're dealing with."

Dean was right. He didn't believe it and now he was worried. As he finished on the floor he stood up and looked down at this brother. "Dean, more people are sick."

"All the more reason to end this now."

"And now you're sick," Sam added, ignoring Dean's tenacious hold on his spirit theory.

"You're worried about me now? Dude, can we just focus on this case? Those people dropped in under a day. This is just a damn cold."

"Whatever. You say you're going to stop this – how? You said yourself that you don't even know what this is."

"That's why we have to get to the sanitarium, search out some clues, find this big bad bitch and fry her up good."

"'Her'?" Dean's tone sounded strangely committed to the female pronoun considering that they didn't have proof of any spirits aside from possibly a ghost boy.

"Or him? It? Who cares? I don't think gender confusion is our biggest problem here."

Dean pushed himself off the bed and waved for Sam to follow him. "Let's hit the road already. You can tell me everything you didn't find out today on the way."


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you very much for the feedback – it really helps. Hopefully this chapter now well enough covers why Sam is humoring Dean and why Dean has been so secretive.**

**As for Ellen and Jo, they're coming soon and were listed as the characters just because I wanted them mentioned and they didn't fit in the summary, but the story is not actually about them so the character listing has been switched to the boys – thanks for the suggestion!**

* * *

If it was possible, Sam's frown deepened as he shifted the Impala into park. The fact that Dean had let him drive was verification enough that his brother wasn't up to a hunt. Add to that the fact that he couldn't remember the last stupid wisecrack Dean had made and being here was about the dumbest thing they could be doing right now.

The only reason he had even agreed to this was because Sam was willing to bet good money that they were going to find a whole lot of nothing here. If he really thought there was a chance of anything being here Dean would be back in the motel tied to a chair.

He was only here checking this abandoned building because this was important to Dean. Even if his brother was a serious pain in the ass some of the time, or more like most of the time, he was still his brother. And Sam was worried about him. If he could finally prove to Dean that there was nothing here then hopefully he would be able to get his brother to stay put in a bed until he shook this stomach flu or whatever it was.

When he looked over to Dean he realized that his brother was out cold slumped against the passenger side door. That explained the lack of chatter. Given that this place was only a ten minute drive from the motel it was a little scary that Dean had managed to fall asleep that fast. But that wasn't the only thing that caught him off guard.

As he looked at his brother he suddenly realized how long it had been since he'd seen Dean actually look at peace. Sam shut off the car's rumbling engine intent on watching his brother sleep, but the comfort of seeing his features so relaxed vanished as the silence let him hear Dean's wheezing breaths. There was nothing right about that.

As much as he didn't like the idea of just leaving Dean out here in the car, he liked the thought of dragging him inside even less. He might be 99.9% sure this place was empty, but he wasn't interested in taking any chances. He could prove to Dean just how empty it was after he checked it out for himself.

Slowly he began to push open the car door, but there was nothing quiet about this steel boat of car that Dean was so obsessed with. The groaning of the door opening inevitably woke Dean. With a sigh Sam settled back into the driver's seat.

"I'm ready," Dean insisted groggily even though his bleary eyes were obviously still out of focus.

His brother was trying to get up and moving before he even remembered what was going on. Sam reached out to stop him, but Dean's own hand clutched his chest first in apparent anticipation of the pain to come. Sam grimaced in sympathy as he listened to ragged cough that wouldn't let up.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean panted as he finally collapsed back against the car door.

Whether or not spirits had anything to do with it, people in this town were getting sick and they were dying. Dean had been fine before they had arrived here and there was no way Sam was going to take a chance that this wasn't just a cold like Dean stubbornly swore it was. Without saying a word, Sam turned the key in the ignition and was blasted with sharp glare from Dean.

"We're here aren't we?" Dean asked after he finally caught his breath.

"I'm taking you to the hospital," he replied without even bothering to look back at Dean.

"Like hell you are." Dean gripped Sam's hand the moment he put it on the clutch. "It's nothing."

"This 'nothing' of yours sounds way too much like pneumonia and if it is and you ignore it, it could kill you."

"Over reacting just a bit here aren't you, Sammy? I get a little cough and you're signing my death certificate," Dean grumbled.

It was Sam's turn to glare as he watched Dean twist open a bottle that looked far too close to empty considering that it was new this afternoon.

"You're going to OD on that stuff."

"If it'll knock out this migraine, I say bring it on."

"It's cough syrup, Dean," Sam shot back with annoyance. "It's not going to cure your headache and it's obviously not working for the cough either."

Dean hesitated for a moment before apparently not being able to come up with a valid argument. He defiantly slammed the bottle into the glovebox. "Killjoy. When my eyes explode out of their sockets – that's on you. Just cut the engine, will you?"

Sam squinted at Dean's hand as it moved back up from the glovebox. They were parked on the side of the lot and there weren't many lights out here. It was hard to make out much, but he was sure he saw a darkened smear on Dean's hand that hadn't been there when they parked.

"Is that blood?"

"Where?" Dean looked outside the car window before following Sam's eyes to his own hand. "Looks like it," he replied as he wiped his hand on his jeans.

"You're a complete idiot, you know that?" Dean looked clueless so Sam continued, "You're coughing up blood and you don't think you need to see a doctor?"

"I'm not coughing up blood. Even if I was it's not like it would be a first. It's just my nose. Come on. I want to get this over with."

"If there's really something in there – we're screwed. You're not up to this."

"The only thing I'm not up to his listening to anymore of your bitching."

"You really think you can watch my back like this? You can't even breath right."

"I don't need to breath easy to pull a damn trigger."

"Right. Because I really like the thought of you shooting a gun around me when you can't even see straight. Right now the only thing you're likely to blow off is your own foot."

"Thanks for that cheery vote of confidence, Little Mary Sunshine. You're worried. I get it. Objection noted, but I'm..." Dean couldn't get it out before another cough hit him.

"You're fine," Sam finished for him. "Yeah. I can tell."

"Just one more word about this and I swear to god I'm going to clock you one." It might have sounded like a more viable threat if Dean had been able to deliver it without sniffling. He wiped his sleeve under his nose before leaning back in the seat. "Then I'm going to shoot myself."

"That's real funny, Dean. Keep this up and I might shoot you."

"Take your best shot," Dean replied as he closed his eyes and rubbed his sinuses. "Man, I wish this was just some demon smashing my skull in with a baseball bat."

Sam just shook his head. "Right. Remind me not to get you a genie for your birthday."

"Shut up. Are we doing this or not?"

"We're not doing this. Not until you tell me why's this case is worth risking your life over."

"Can the Dr. Phil crap. I risk my sorry life on every damn case we go on. Same as you. I'm going in. If you want to wait out here, that's fine by me."

Before he could say anything further Dean was out of the car and raiding the trunk for weapons. Dean didn't wait for Sam before heading towards the abandoned building. Sam didn't exactly have any choice but to follow him even if this was a monumentally stupid plan. In fact, as far as he knew, Dean didn't even have a plan and Sam's only plan was to show him that he was wrong. Suddenly Sam was praying that he was right on this one.

He easily scrambled over the old chain link security fence after his brother. When he caught up to Dean his brother was too obviously trying to look as if he wasn't winded and that it didn't hurt just to breath.

"So what's your theory here?" Sam asked.

"Already told you. Like a hundred times," Dean replied as he kept walking without so much as glancing to Sam.

"I know, but no matter how many times you say it, it still doesn't make sense."

"The deaths happening in town now match the deaths that happened here before they shut this place down and every ten years after that. What part of that isn't clear, College Boy?"

"The deaths match what exactly? They housed sick people here and if you look hard enough you could match them up to anything. I know. I was the one that spent the day digging through the records. You haven't even seen them."

"I don't need to see them. I just know."

"Because you're the psychic one now."

"And you're a dick. What's your point?" He sent a glare towards Sam, but his shoulders slumped as he continued towards the building. "I saw copies of the records when Dad was here. That's how I know."

"Yeah, about that...you said you're getting this from Dad's journal, but if Dad came here to deal with these spirits then why are they still here?"

"Because Dad didn't find anything. He said the place was clean."

"Since when are you out to prove Dad wrong?"

"This isn't about proving anything. I know Dad was wrong about this. If I would've just been more like you and stood up to him...made him listen the first time around twenty two fathers and sons would still be living their lives."

"More like me?"

Sam was glad Dean wasn't looking at him because he knew he had shock plastered all over his face. He didn't think he would have ever heard those words come out of Dean's mouth. But he didn't have time to focus on them because suddenly Dean's hardheadedness about this case was starting to make a whole lot of sense. Back in the hotel room his brother had talked like he was the one killing these people because he thought he was.

"Whatever you think this is. It's not your fault and you know I hate to say this, but maybe Dad was right, Dean. You're sick. It doesn't mean that some dark entity is behind it. Like you said yourself, sometimes a cold is just a cold."

"Except when it's not. The victims were all seeing spirits before they died. I'm not seeing diddly-squat. Catching on yet?"

"The adults didn't see anything."

"They didn't admit to seeing anything," Dean corrected. "I don't know...maybe adults can't see this thing. Maybe the kids see the spirits instead even if they're not the ones it's going after. How am I supposed to know?"

Sam sighed. He waited beside a gnarly old shrub that had grown up over a boarded up window and watched Dean work the padlock sealing the building. "Are you even listening to yourself? Every time something doesn't fit your theory you change the facts."

Dean stopped and turned to Sam. He looked him dead in the eyes with all the intensity his exhausted body could muster. "I'm not changing the facts - I'm just trying to figure out what they are. This is real. People are really dying. Why can't you just trust me?"

He paced away from Dean and ran his hand through his hair as he tried to think. "I do trust you. More than anything. You know that. But you're sick and you want there to be something here so bad...maybe there is something and maybe there's not. I just don't think you're..."

"What?" Dean challenged.

"Nothing."

Sam really didn't want to fight with him now, but his brother had been so coiled up for a fight since they'd got here that he didn't feel like there was anything he could say that wouldn't just rile his brother up more. And apparently he was right because suddenly Dean was in his face.

"Come on. I want to hear this. Tell me what I'm not."

But just as suddenly Dean jerked away. He leaned heavily against the door as he clutched his ribcage against another wracking cough. When he stood upright again he waved Sam off.

"Better yet don't," Dean told him. "You know what? Honestly, I don't give a rat's ass what you, Dad or anyone else thinks about this. I'm not letting anyone else die so if this saving lives crap is getting in the way of your beauty sleep go back to the car. Go back to the motel. Go to Tahiti. I don't care. I don't get your problem is with this case."

"And I don't get why you're looking for a case where there isn't one."

"That kid, Jimmy, and the others...they saw something and they died thinking no one believed them. With everyone thinking they were crazy. Well, I believe them!"

The intense sincerity in Dean's tone stopped the objection on the tip of Sam's tongue. For a moment he watched Dean try to catch his breath as he let the unlocked padlock hit against the door. His brother looked like he wanted to say something else and Sam was afraid that if he said anything Dean wouldn't continue.

"I believe them because you saw something too. And so did I."

Sam just stared at Dean. He didn't remember having ever been here let alone having seen anything when he was. But Dean was older and for better or worse, he'd always had the better memory. Sam was honestly glad to have forgotten a lot of things. Maybe it wasn't his memory. Maybe he had just tried to forget.

"We saw something when Dad was here last?"

It was reluctant, but Dean nodded. All the fire that had been keeping Dean running seemed to suddenly be gone. His brother lowered himself down onto the front step of the building and set his shotgun down next to him.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" Sam asked as he sat down next to Dean.

"Tell you what? Do you think I just had you running around town to keep you out of my hair? I really don't know what's going on. My head is ready to explode with how hard I've been trying to remember and no matter what I try - I can't. I'm useless here, Sam."

Sam furrowed his brow as he watched the worry and frustration that Dean had obviously been struggling to hide this whole time swell to the surface. His brother looked desperate and he wanted to help, but he didn't understand what Dean was trying to tell him.

"Remember what? What are you trying to remember, Dean?"

"I don't know. I remember coming to town. We were only supposed to be here a night, but Dad vanished. It was more like a week and then you told me about some ghost kid and I came here."

"To look for the ghost by yourself?"

"To look for Dad. I thought he was dead, but I had to take care of you. I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do. I had to find him."

Sam was done wanting to kill Dean. Now it was probably just a good thing that Dad was already dead. Only Dean could construe Dad abandoning them for some stupid hunt as something that was his responsibility.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"Because I think these people are dying because of me."

"The people that are sick? That's just crazy, Dean."

"Don't ask me why. I can remember how I felt but I can't remember what happened. I mean, I remember coming here and seeing these spirits. Seeing Dad. But then there's just this hole and I know it's something important."

"It's okay. We'll figure this out."

"This is something bad, Sam. Real bad. I can feel it in my bones. I saw these things because I hunted them down, but you were the one they showed themselves to. If this is something about you...Dad almost died here."

"That's why you wouldn't tell me what was going on. You thought this thing was going to come after me."

"I just got this feeling that I screwed up bad and Dad...he was sure I did. I remember that clear as day."

The moon had peaked out from the clouds just enough for Sam to see the disdain in Dean's eyes as he stared out towards the woods that surrounded them. He knew that loathing Dean was feeling wasn't for Dad like it should be. Like everything else, Dean was taking this on himself.

Sam had to make a conscious effort to loosen his white-knuckle grip on the cement steps before Dean saw it. Biting his tongue was killing him, but any window of getting Dean to talk was always short.

"I thought I could do this," Dean told him. "I came here and I thought if I looked around town, if I came back to this place. Then I'd remember, but I don't. I don't remember what's so god damn important. I don't remember why I have to be here. I just know that I do."

With as tied up in this thing as Dean was Sam knew there was going to be no talking him out of it, but it was hard for him to think about any case right now. Sitting so close to Dean he could feel his brother trembling beside him. He realized that Dean had wrapped himself inside of this jacket again.

Despite the objection he knew he'd receive Sam put his hand to Dean's forehead. He was burning up. For all he knew Dean was half delirious right now. Dean might be wracking his brain trying to remember something that wasn't even there.

Dean slapped Sam's hand. "Dude, stop feeling me up. Are you even listening to me?"

"Yeah, I'm listening. So what do you want to do?"

"I want to go inside and see if the bitch I remember is working her mojo same as before. If I'm right, then we can stop this here and now."

"And if we don't find anything you'll let me take you to the hospital."

"We'll see," Dean replied as he pushed himself to his feet.

"No. This is non negotiable." Sam stood and stared at Dean whose expression was stubbornly set. It was going to take a lot more than common sense to get through to his brother. "You know that nurse said she really liked you."

"Now you're just screwing with me..." Sam just raised his brows suggestively and Dean caved. "Deal. Doesn't matter anyway. I'm always right."

* * *

_Outside the Krobath Sanitarium – Green Bay, Oregon - 1987_

It had taken some searching, but Dean had finally found a weak point in the fence. His small hands dug a little deeper into the mud before he scooted around and kicked at it with his shoes. Quickly he realized his mistake as he pulled his muck-covered shoes out of the hole.

He didn't like the feeling of the mud slipping over the edge into his shoes, but the bigger problem was how he was going to get this cleaned up so Dad didn't notice. The clothes he could deal with but if he trashed his only pair of shoes Dad was going to kill him.

He supposed it really didn't matter. Dad was going to kill him anyway. Dean shouldn't be here and he knew it. He should be back at the motel watching Sammy, but he'd made sure that Sammy would be safe there. It was Dad that he was worried about right now.

It had been days since they'd seen him and he'd never let them run out of food before. Something had to be wrong and if Dad was in trouble then he had to find him. He knew that he was supposed to call Pastor Jim. Dad had endlessly drilled that into his head, but Pastor Jim wasn't here. What could he really do to help find Dad?

Between Dad having stopped by this creepy old building on the way into town and Sammy having seen a ghost here, it was the best place Dean could think to look for Dad. Crawling on his belly, Dean squirmed beneath the chain link fence. He bit his lip as the bottom edge of the chain link dug into his back and caught the top of his jeans.

Squiggling around just a bit more he finally popped out on the inside of the security fence. Shinning his small flashlight at his shirt he grimaced as he realized there was no way he was going to get it clean. It didn't really matter how mad Dad was about it, just as long as he found him.

Moving quickly towards the front of the building, he hid down next to the bushes and looked around to make sure that no one was watching him. When he was satisfied that he was alone, he scrambled out of the bushes and reached for the doorknob, but of course it was locked.

Dad could make any door open, but Dean hadn't quite figured out how he did yet. He did know something that would work though. Returning to the bush, he searched around the landscaping until he found a rock. The first one he found would more than do the job, but it was too heavy for him to really pick up, let alone throw.

Going for a smaller, but still heavy one, Dean lifted his chosen rock and threw it into the front window. He stayed low for a minute as he waited to see if anyone reacted to the shattering glass, but no one came.

Peeling off his mud-covered shirt, he climbed up into the shrub and leaned towards the broken window. With the shirt wrapped around his arm he punched out the sharp shards that remained on the bottom edge of the window. He then laid the shirt over the ledge before pulling himself from the shrub and through the window.

He hit the floor rolling, just managing to avoid the worst of the broken glass. When he was back on his feet he walked back over the glass and pulled his shirt from the window. He shook the shards of glass out of it before slipping the gross shirt back on. It was wet enough now that it wasn't helping with the cold chill in the air like he'd hoped it would.

A shiver ran through him. He pulled a .45 from the waistband of his jeans and fumbled to hold it along with the dim flashlight. Dad always made it look easy, but the loaded pistol was heavy in his little hands. Cautiously he moved into the darkness of the recently closed sanitarium.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thank you again for all the marvelous feedback! This chapter is a bit longer because these scenes were too interconnected to split up.  
**

* * *

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 2007_

Sam followed Dean inside and tried to divide his attention equally between watching for any dangers Dean might not see right now and watching Dean himself. His brother was being strangely quiet as he shined his flashlight around what must have at one point been the main lobby.

"Anything look familiar?" Sam asked.

"All of it. Kind of...it was a long time ago."

Sam wanted to press about what Dean was actually looking for, but his brother was already drowning in frustration. The only thing he could do was try to ease Dean's mind with the fact that there was no way he could be responsible for the deaths happening in this town.

"I talked to the families of the original victims. None of them have even heard of this place. As far as I can tell you and the cops are the only ones who even know this place exists anymore."

"Exactly why this is the prefect place for some dark and nasty to set up shop. We just gotta figure out how she's choosing victims."

Aside from the sound of glass crunching under their shoes there was nothing but silence inside the thick walls and the air was sickly stale. There obviously hadn't been anyone alive in here for a very long time. If there was any connection to the apparently random families Sam seriously doubted they would find it in here.

"I think we've already established that these people have no connection to each other. They aren't from the same parts of town – the computer guy wasn't even from town - they don't share a workplace, a church...as a matter of fact they're probably the only people in this town that have never met."

Dean shrugged. "That proves I'm right."

"How do you figure that?"

"Mystical diseases don't need some kid wiping his snotty nose on someone to spread. Normal diseases do. So there."

"So there?" Sam repeated. "Man, I swear you never graduated from junior high."

While Sam was expecting a snappy comeback he realized that Dean was scarcely listening to him anymore. At the rate he was flying through this place, if being sick wasn't slowing his brother down, Dean probably would have left him in the dust. It wasn't like Dean was trying to ditch him, but he was so focused that he seemed to have forgotten that Sam was there. His brother was on the trail of something.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

Dean stopped walking and turned his flashlight back towards Sam. "What's what?"

"Nothing..." Dean wasn't searching the place to see what was here. He was looking for something in particular, but he obviously had no intention of telling Sam what that something was. "Dean, even if this is some super juiced spirit somehow turning people's bodies against themselves there still has to be something connecting the victims."

"They don't have to be connected to each other. Maybe they just all have something in common. If we figure out how this spirit swings then we'll at least have a better idea what we're dealing with and who's next."

"Right now it looks like the whole town is next."

"As near as Dad could figure, she only takes a dozen at a time. We're eight down with only four left to go. Once all twelve are dead this thing takes another long nap and it's another ten years before I can stop it."

"Before _we_ can stop it," Sam corrected. He was tired of Dean acting like he was in this one alone.

"Whatever. I'm not planning on being around that long anyway. This is the only shot we're going to get and I'm not going to screw it up again."

Sam stopped walking as he stared after his brother. "You're not planning on being around Oregon in ten years?" he asked hopefully even though he could tell full well from Dean's tone what his brother meant. He just didn't want to hear it now.

He had to admit that the last year and a half alone had seemed like a lifetime and Dean had never had the hiatus he'd had. This was all Dean had ever done and he was pretty sure it was all he wanted to do. But suddenly he wasn't so sure. Maybe Dean just thought it was all he could do in which case even just ten more years of the same wasn't exactly something to look forward to.

"Hunters don't die of old age, Sammy. It's for the best anyway. The retirement package sucks."

The certainty with which Dean declared he was going to be dead in ten years and how little he sounded like he cared was enough to make Sam want to shake him. Not that it would help anything. Dean obviously already had irreparable brain damage.

"We need to head downstairs," Dean told him.

"We're on the ground floor."

"There's a basement."

"You read floor plans now?"

"No, but I don't need glasses like you obviously do." Dean shone his flashlight down one of the corridors like he was proving a point, but it didn't actually look different from any of the other empty hallways they had just walked through. "Maybe we should get your eyes checked."

"Or your head. Talk about snot nosed kids. Seriously, Dean! Use a tissue already."

He wasn't sure how many times he'd seen Dean wipe his running nose on the cuff of his shirt, but it was about five times too many just since they'd broken into this place. Silently he made a note never to touch Dean's clothing again.

"What?" Dean asked with a totally clueless expression. His tone turned indignant as he figured out what Sam was talking about. He motioned to himself as he replied, "Dude. Do I look like I carry 'tissues'?"

Welcome to preschool. Shaking his head, Sam pulled a pack of Kleenex out of his pocket and threw it at Dean. His brother caught it but acted like he didn't know what he was supposed to do with it.

"Seriously?" He quirked a brow at Sam. "You do know you're a total douchebag?"

Sam didn't bother replying and instead just watched as Dean made a show of blowing his nose with one of the tissues before wadding it up and tossing it aside. His brother stuffed the rest of the pack in his pocket before continuing to the door.

Dean hesitated long enough that Sam thought he saw something, but then without a word, Dean stepped to the side and threw the door open. After it was open he just stood frozen in the doorway. Sam walked up behind and looked past him.

He didn't see anything strange beyond the door. In the darkness all he could see was that Dean was right about where the door led. It did go to a basement, but it looked like just more creepy abandoned building.

"You okay?" Sam asked when Dean still didn't budge.

"Fine," Dean replied shortly before finally moving forward.

* * *

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 1987_

Dean was starting to think that coming here had been a bad idea. So far he hadn't found any sign of Dad. He was cold, hungry, tired and everything about this place was scary. He'd done a run through of most of three floors – literally running through a few spots - and was taking one last look around the main floor. As much as Dad wouldn't want him to do this, it's what Dad would do.

He suddenly froze as he heard a strange sound echoing chanting from down the hall. "Dad?" he asked cautiously.

While he received no reply he followed the sound into one of the back corridors. He gripped the pistol in his hand so tightly that his arm trembled. The sound was coming from behind the door at the end of the hall.

"Dad, is that you?"

He slipped the flashlight into his pocket to free up his hand to open the door. The knob barely turned before the door thrust itself open. A sweeping gust of energy easily flung his small body back down the hallway and sent his gun clattering away.

With a small whimper Dean turned onto his side. His eyes strained to find the weapon in the darkness even while he struggled to pull back in the air that had been forced from his lungs. As soon as everything stopped spinning he scrambled to his feet. His hands fumbled in his pocket to find his flashlight again.

He used the beam of light in a desperate search for the gleam of the gun's barrel. Only after he'd recovered his weapon did he shine the flashlight to illuminate what had thrown him back.

His face wrinkled in confusion when he saw nothing there. Tentatively he approached the door again. Whatever had knocked him down should be trying to kill him now unless something had stopped it. Maybe Dad was here after all.

"Dad? Are you down here?" he called down into the dark.

He shined his flashlight down the cement stairs. There wasn't enough power in the beam of light for him to see what lay beyond the last step and he couldn't hear the chanting sound anymore. Another shiver ran through him as he tried to do decide what to do. His instinct told him to turn and ran, but something was here and so far it was the closest thing he had to a clue about where Dad might be.

Carefully he made his way down the steps, staying low incase something else tried to push him. His feet made it to solid ground, but as soon they did the door at the top of steps slammed closed behind him.

* * *

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 2007_

Dean raised his shotgun as he got ready to head down the stairs. With as reluctant and weird as Dean was being about walking through the doorway, Sam was pretty sure that Dean shouldn't be going down there at all. Just as he was about to suggest that Dean stay here, his brother spoke first.

"Stay here," Dean ordered without looking back at Sam.

"Why would I do that?"

Dean halted a couple of steps down and finally looked back up at him. There was something off in his expression and even more so in the lack of explanation that followed.

"Because I told you to."

"Since when is that a reason?"

"Since I'm your big brother."

Oddly enough his brother wasn't being a smart ass for once. The words he said made it seem like he was, but his tone was dead serious. Half the time Dean wanted Sam to be the grown up, half the time Dean wanted to be the grown up but Dean didn't seem to think, regardless of their age, that they could ever be adults at the same time.

"If this really is something drawing you here then this is a trap and you're not walking into it alone." Dean didn't look like he cared, but he knew what would convince his brother. "I told you, I need you to watch my back in here."

It wasn't fair of him to play off Dean's fear that this thing might be after him, but his brother wasn't leaving him with a lot to work with. Dean seemed to see what he was saying, but still looked nervous. Nervous wasn't something he saw too often on Dean's face and he didn't like it.

"Someone needs to watch the door," Dean replied

He looked at Dean for a moment and realized his brother wasn't just being practical. He was afraid. Dean thought that they were going to be trapped down there. All the more reason Dean wasn't going alone. The last thing he needed was for Dean to end up isolated with anything that had him thrown this far off his game.

It wasn't the time for it, but he was suddenly feeling guilty that he had ever thought about leaving Dean alone in this. If he was back at Stanford where he'd wanted so badly to be Dean would be here alone without anyone watching his back.

It had never seemed like a big deal when Dean was playing the infuriating, kill anything that looked at him funny tough guy. But sometimes Dean came off so strong it was deceptive because most of it was an act and now Dean didn't look invincible. He looked young and vulnerable. He looked scared.

Dean was trying so hard to remember what had happened here before he was probably completely engulfed in the bits and pieces he did have. His brother had said earlier that he was more feeling emotions then remembering – feelings from the past that he could be applying to the here and now without even realizing it. Sam wasn't sure how much the Dean he knew was here with him and how much he was instead standing here with the much younger Dean that had been here alone so many years earlier.

"If the door is going to close I'm going to be on the same side as you," Sam told him. "We're better off sticking together."

* * *

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 1987_

Dean jumped at the resounding thud of the door slamming close behind him. He sprinted back up the stairs and tugged as hard as he could on the doorknob. The door wouldn't budged. He really shouldn't have come here, but it was too late to go back now.

With worried eyes he turned back towards the basement that he was now locked in. If there was something here, he'd just have to kill it. If he was alone there at least had to be something down here he could use to open the door. Reluctantly he moved back down the steps.

"Dad, please be down here," he whispered to himself.

With his faint light he could only make out bits and pieces of what was around him. From what he could see it was just a bunch of storage. Everything almost seemed normal until he saw strange glowing lights from behind one of the piles of stuff.

Clicking off his flashlight, he hunkered down and crawled towards a couple of piles of boxes. His muddy shoes were too squeaky on the slick floor for him to walk quietly. Silently he squatted down to keep hidden. He rested the pistol on his knee to try to keep it steady while his finger remained tightly cramped around the trigger. Trying to breath softly, he peered in between the opening between the two piles of boxes.

In a cleared area he could see an old lady standing in the middle of a lit circle of funny pictures that were glowing on the ground. She was like a ghost, but she didn't look like the few ghosts he'd seen before. He could almost see through her, but she glowed in a funny way that was bright enough to make him squint. It was like she was there and she wasn't at the same time.

He didn't really know what she was but his heart sank as he realized how stupid he was. The gun he clutched so tightly wasn't going to help him. Why had brought a gun to hunt ghosts? Really he'd just brought it to make himself feel better and that was no way to hunt. Dad was going to be really mad that he hadn't thought this through better.

Urgently he tried to think of what Dad would do when another light appeared behind him. He squiggled in his hiding spot to turn to face it. This one wasn't an old lady, it was a boy probably his height and maybe just a little older than him.

The boy didn't glow like the old ghost lady but instead flickered faintly. The boy's shirt was covered with blood just like Sammy had said. Even though he was looking his direction the boy didn't seem to see him and he really did look scared. It didn't do anything to comfort Dean's own growing fears.

Ghosts were bad but he got why Sammy had wanted him to help this one. He was about to try to whisper something to the ghost boy when it flickered away. Instead of standing behind the boxes with him the ghost boy was suddenly standing in front of the nasty old ghost lady who was dragging the boy towards her without even touching him. The ghost boy tried to run, but couldn't move. It tried to scream but no sound came out.

Dean stumbled back from what he saw as the ghost lady's body contoured. Her human form twisted grotesquely and the formerly human looking mouth distended. It rapidly grew larger and longer until it was big enough to snap closed and swallow the ghost boy whole. Dean's wide eyes blinked and as soon as he opened them again it just looked like an old lady standing in the circle again.

Dean didn't know what to make of what he had saw, but he forgot about it entirely as he saw another figure coming towards the glowing circle the old ghost lady stood in. It only took him a moment to recognize the man as his dad. He wasn't sure if Dad had seen what he had so he had to warn him.

"Dad!"

As soon as he ran from behind the boxes his relief was shattered. He froze on the far side of the circle when he realized that Dad couldn't see him or hear him anymore than the ghost boy had been able to. All his dad seemed to see was the old ghost lady. His eyes went wide again as the reality sunk in that Dad was every bit as transparent as the little boy had been.

* * *

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 2007_

The closest Dean had gotten to what he wanted was getting to go down the stairs first. Even that Sam wasn't thrilled about. Dean seemed to be walking fine, but his brother was the type to force himself to walk steady until he collapsed and these were some pretty steep steps without railings.

While Dean might not think he needed to be around for much longer, Sam wasn't about to let him check out by splitting his skull open on these concrete steps. Thankfully Dean was focused enough on what was ahead that he didn't seem to notice the fact that Sam was close enough to grab him if he had to.

Dean made it down fine and as soon as he hit the bottom step he didn't hesitate in heading across the room. Sam had thought that Dean was full of it earlier, but by the way he was walking Dean really had been here before and he looked like he knew exactly where he was going.

Whatever this basement floor had originally been it was large, but the piles of boxes and decades worth of accumulated junk made the place feel like a cramped maze. Sam stopped scanning the room and went to close the short distance between him and his brother. He didn't move fast enough.

He momentarily lost track of Dean when Dean's flashlight beam vanished. In nearly the same moment he heard his brother cry out followed by the sound of a body dropping.

"Dean? Dean! Where are you?"

While he received no answer from his brother, he could hear the panted breaths echoing through the room. He ran through the boxes before coming on an open area clean of any other clutter. In the center of the opening Dean was on his knees gasping with his hand pressed tightly to his back. Sam skidded to a stop beside him.

"What happened?"

He kneeled down beside his silent brother while he tried to simultaneously look for whatever it was that had attacked him. Dean was the only one he'd heard down here and he didn't see anything now.

"I don't know...something cut my back," Dean finally told him.

"Let me see."

His brother was wearing two layers of shirts underneath his leather jacket. Sam was almost afraid to look. There was plenty of random sharp things down here, but anything that had gotten through the layers must have done some serious damage.

Dean hissed as Sam pulled the layers of fabric up enough so that he could get a clear look at Dean's back. When he didn't find the stream of blood he had imagined he let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He examined the area closely. The only thing that scared him was how hot the skin on Dean's back felt. Shaking his head, he let Dean's jacket fall back into place.

"There's nothing there, Dean. It looks fine."

"Well, look again. It sure doesn't feel fine. It's burning like a mother."

He didn't doubt that Dean was in real pain. His brother wasn't one to let it show even when he was actually hurt. He only doubted where the pain was coming from. To appease Dean, he checked again, but the skin wasn't broken or so much as bruised anywhere Dean was complaining about.

"It's probably the fever," Sam replied.

"It's no fever. I just remembered something...the floor."

"What?"

"Check the damn floor, Sam."

With an annoyed sigh, Sam looked down at the floor. All he saw was the dirty cement floor he'd expected to see. He was about to tell Dean he was loosing it when he finally saw what Dean had to be referring to. Moving the flashlight from Dean, he saw some kind of symbol marked on the floor.

Sam reached out to wipe the years worth of accumulated dust away and quickly realized that it was not one symbol but a complete ritual circle of some kind. He didn't recognize the symbols specifically, but there was no mistaking what it was and Dean had collapsed in the dead center of it.

"We need to get you out of here. Where's your flashlight?"

"It's here. Just went out. Piece of crap."

Sam stood up and pulled the EMF meter from his pocket. He clicked it on and scanned the area around them. The device lit up like a Christmas tree and filled the basement with a disconcerting buzz of confirmation. Dean wasn't all wrong.

"Told you," his brother grumbled as he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. "Where are you bitch?" Dean called out.

Dean loved taunting, but by his tone right now, he was obviously genuinely pissed and then some. Maybe he was mad himself or at this thing or at Dad for leaving him. Maybe he was just mad at the world in general. Sam couldn't always tell, but he could tell that his brother was still spoiling for a fight that he couldn't win.

"Knock it off, Dean" Sam warned him.

His brother could stand around and yell at ghosts that may or may not be here until he was hacking up his lungs again, but it wouldn't help anything if the spirit didn't want to be found. Not to mention the fact that Sam was more afraid that the spirit might actually answer.

They weren't in any position to deal with it if it did respond. Right now Dean wasn't playing bait. He just flat out was bait. As much as Dean made this sound simple, it wasn't because this thing couldn't just be a ghost. Either it wasn't what was making the people in town sick or it was way out of the leagues of anything Dean was up to dealing with. Knowing their luck, it was probably both.

The smart thing to do would be to find out what the symbols were for, but Dean was stupidly intent on drawing this thing out here now. "You want me? I'm right here – come and get it!"

It was one ragged shout too many. Sam moved in as Dean doubled over. When the coughing fit passed, Sam grabbed a hold of the front of Dean's jacket to force him to look at him before he could get started on some other totally stupid lack of plan.

"Dean, stop!"

"Get your hands off me," Dean warned as he shoved Sam hard. But Dean wasn't all there and it wasn't hard enough to force Sam to loose his grip on his brother.

Sam gave Dean one hard shake to prove that he wasn't going to let him go. "Just stop," Sam repeated.

Dean's rigid stance deflated in his grip. As the desperation returned to his brother's eyes Sam suddenly wasn't sure that he was helping anything. He knew Dean needed to deal with this, but not like this. With Dean obviously disarmed Sam released his grip and took a step back to give him some space and let him try to catch his breath.

It was time to go back to trying to reason with Dean. "Hacking your lungs out at shadows isn't going to save anyone."

Dean still wasn't looking at him, but at least he was half listening now. "It was here. Still is."

"What did you see?"

There was a long hesitation before Dean replied, "I didn't see anything. Just felt it."

Maybe that logical conversation wasn't going to happen after all. "I know, you just know, but Dean, if this thing has been here for ten years then it will still be here when we get back."

Dean's chest was still heaving and he looked like he was ready to collapse without having an opponent coming at him. Sam wanted to save these people as much as Dean did, but there was no way he was willing to let his brother sacrifice himself to do it.

Sam put away the EMF meter that wasn't helping anything. This whole basement was hot so it wasn't going to help them pinpoint anything specific down here. Besides, the center of activity seemed pretty clear. He pulled his phone from his pocket and started snapping some shots of the symbols on the floor.

When he got down close enough to really look at them he realize that the circle wasn't painted onto the floor. The cement almost seemed to be raised and indented with the marks as if they had been etched or maybe burned into it. He didn't know how they would have been put there.

It was time to get Dean out of here before whatever had made this circle did decide to drop in. He glanced to his brother whose eyes were still searching the darkness around them. As he stood up again he better saw the distant look Dean wore. He wasn't looking at anything that was here and now.

"We got what we need," he told Dean. "Let's get back to the hotel and check this out. Once we know what we're dealing with we'll come back and deal with it, okay?"

He moved closer to his brother when he didn't reply. "Dean?"

"Sam, Dad was here."


	8. Chapter 8

**The feedback is so wonderful to read - thank you! This particular chapter sticks to the present because there's lots to cover in this one, but we'll be returning to the past in the next chapter. **

* * *

Sam could finally breath again as he drove the Impala back towards town. It hadn't been easy getting Dean to leave the old sanitarium empty handed. If Dean had been healthy then there would have been no way to force him out of there, but on the other hand, if Dean hadn't been so sick Sam wouldn't have had a problem with sticking around to look for more evidence.

Something was there and it was packing a lot of juice. It was just hard to say how much and what it was. He was going to need to go back, but not until Dean was somewhere safe. Of course he hadn't told Dean that he was planning on ditching him to deal with this alone and he had no intention of telling him. All he had told Dean was that they would go back before morning and that figuring out what they were dealing with was their only hope of stopping it.

When Dean had related to him what he remembered from the past it was about as clear as it got that this wasn't just some ghost. He still didn't get how Dad fit into any of this. Dean swore up and down that he had seen Dad as a ghost but that the next thing he remembered was finding Dad on the side of the road somewhere. It was hard not to think that some of what Dean was coming up with was just his mind trying to fill in some painful gaps.

As easy as it was to chalk it all up to invented memory, at least some of it was real. Before they had left the basement Dean had come up with a .45 Smith & Wesson that Sam hadn't seen before. When he'd asked Dean about it his brother hadn't said much but once they were in the car he'd fallen asleep with the thing cradled in his lap.

"Stop the car!"

Instinctively listening to his brother's order, Sam slammed on the breaks without knowing why he was doing it. A second later the reason was clear. The pistol was thrown onto the car floor and Dean barely waited for the car to stop lurching before stumbling out. He walked a few steps off the shoulder towards the forest's edge before he bent over with his hands braced on his knees facing away from Sam.

Sam pursed his lips before killing the engine and getting out himself. Dean had already made it clear that he didn't want him hovering so he forced himself to remain back. He leaned against the hood of the car with his arms crossed over his chest as he listened to Dean wretch. Slowly his brother straightened and paced some uneasy steps along the foggy highway.

Maybe Dean was right. Demons were better than being sick. At least with demons there was something to fight, but he was tired of watching Dean be a pigheaded moron. He knew that between everything going on with the case and his body giving out Dean was just frustrated. He was too, but at times when Dean wouldn't step up and be the big brother, Sam had to.

"Dean this is stupid. You need to be in bed."

There was a long moment of silence as he watched Dean take a few more staggering steps. Sam pushed himself away from the hood as he saw Dean sway.

"You're right," Dean finally gasped in reply.

"I am?" He knew he was, he was shocked that Dean was saying it.

"Yep," Dean replied with a strained voice. "But maybe we should go to the hospital first."

It was Sam's excuse to move in. In an instant he was at Dean's side, reaching out to offer him support. "You okay?"

"Get your freakin' hands off me," Dean said as he swatted at Sam. "Do I look okay?"

Dean really couldn't look further from it. The moon was out in full force now lighting up the fog around them. The pale light made Dean look all the more like a ghost. But then Sam's eyes caught the stark contrast of the dark, thick, glossy liquid coating Dean's chin.

"Now I'm coughing up blood," his brother admitted.

"Dean, get in the car."

* * *

_Outside Green Bay General Hospital_

It was a couple of stops later before they made it to a hospital, but once they were there Sam second-guessed whether or not he had remembered the location correctly. The place had been empty when they were here the other day and now he couldn't find a parking spot on what should have been empty streets.

There were people milling around the hospital building in a chaotic line up that stretched out to the street. Either the hospital was holding a convention or all those people were really trying to storm the small facility. It was pretty clear that it was the latter when Sam caught sight of the local officers that were trying to manage the crowd.

Sam glanced at his watch. It was 1:30 AM. The knot in his stomach grew tighter. The number of cases had risen by only two when he had last talked to Dr. Hammond this afternoon and if Dean was right in his theory there should have been only two more after that to get sick before this was all over. Maybe this was something else and a plane had crashed or a hotel had collapsed while they were outside of town.

Those were the best case scenarios he could come up with, but Sam knew that him, Dean and the rest of these poor people weren't that lucky. If this was what it looked like, Dean was right. There sure was something happening in this town. It just wasn't what Dean had expected.

Sam flipped on the police scanner as he took the car once more around the block. At the stop sign, he tuned into the local police frequency. As the crackling chatter began, Dean shifted in his seat. His brother stared blankly out the window for part of the trip around the block but then looked as bewildered as Sam felt.

"What the...is the circus in town?" Dean asked with a scratchy voice.

"I don't know what's going on," Sam replied.

He turned the volume up on the scanner. It only confirmed that something big was happening. He had driven these streets the other night and they'd been stone empty. Now the hospital was loaded, there were cars lining the streets and the scanner was buzzing with bits and pieces of calls that didn't add up to anything but bad news.

He sent a troubled look towards Dean. "Something's wrong."

"You think?" Dean rasped back. He could tell there was more his brother wanted to say, but it was obvious by the expression on Dean's face that it was hurting him to talk.

Before Sam could make sense of the reports they were listening to a spot near the front of the hospital finally opened up. It wasn't actually a parking spot, more like a neighboring plot of grass that the person before them had decided was good enough for parking. Sam couldn't agree more. A ticket would be the least of their problem right now and he was pretty sure that the cops also had bigger things on their hands.

He could tell that Dean wasn't thrilled about where he'd parked the Impala, but right now he couldn't care less about the nasty looks Dean was sending him. Sam got out and hurried over to the passenger side. Dean had already thrown open the door and shot Sam a lethal glare as he moved towards him.

"Touch me again, Sammy, and I swear to god I'll kill you," Dean hissed.

Sam halted his approach, but his eyes pleaded with Dean. "You're sick. It's okay if you need help."

The fact was that his fussing over Dean wasn't because he thought it was what Dean wanted or needed. He knew full well that Dean would literally rather die than be doted over by his little brother, but he felt painfully helpless here and if he could help Dean walk then at least he would be doing something.

"You're worried – I get it," Dean replied as he rubbed his eyes before meeting Sam's, "But I'm having enough trouble breathing without you suffocating me, alright?"

Reluctantly Sam nodded. "Yeah, okay."

"Thanks." Sam raised his brows as Dean continued to just sit there. "Now help me up, will you?"

Sam wasn't sure if his brother had changed his mind because he knew how badly Sam wanted to help or if Dean had realized he didn't have the energy to get up. He was hoping like hell that it was the former.

"Come on, let's go."

Finally feeling like he had something to do, Sam reached in to give Dean a hand. It ended up being that he practically had to haul Dean out. It was a long moment before Dean got his own footing and even then Sam couldn't tell if he'd really remain upright without support.

"Okay. Now get your hands off me," Dean ordered.

With a concerned scowl Sam took a token half step back. Dean really had just needed the help to get up. He just wished that Dean would get it through his thick skull that getting assistance now didn't make him weak.

"If you were hurt you'd let me help."

Dean sneered at him as he used the car to steady himself. "If I was hurt, I'd need your help. This is totally different."

"How's this different? Hurt or sick it's the same damn thing, Dean."

"No. It's not."

"Why not?"

"Because it's just not!"

The hoarse shout was probably the last thing Dean had needed to do. A pained grimace washed over his brother's ashen features and Dean's hands blindly grasped for anything that would keep him from falling. Sam was there in an instant clutching Dean tightly against him as his brother coughed and gasped desperately for air. Dean's chest was still heaving as he spat a mouthful of blood onto the sidewalk.

Sam didn't wait for Dean to catch his breath enough to protest before he slipped his arm around him and hurried his brother as fast as he could move him towards the hospital doors. As they approached the entrance they were having to work their way around a lot of angry people, but Dean's pale, blood splattered face did well to get people to give them some room if only because they didn't want Dean anywhere near them.

"Sorry...excuse me," Sam said for what had to be the hundredth time before he hit a group, probably a family, that blocked him from getting any further. "I gotta get my brother..."

This time his words hitched in his throat as he realized that the man before him didn't even notice that he was there. The father was cradling a young boy that likewise had blood trickled down his mouth. Only he was afraid that the small boy's chest wasn't moving. It was the first time that he really looked at the people that surrounded them.

There where more than a few in his immediate vicinity that looked as bad or worse than Dean. Panic surged through him as the implication hit, but as Dean started coughing again he stopped thinking and forced the rest of the way through the protesting crowd.

More than a couple of the people pushed him back and while he could have easily taken them, he wasn't here to hurt anyone or start even more of a panic. Besides, he would have to let go of Dean to fight and there was no way he was putting his brother down. Luckily he didn't have to. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the badge he had been waving around last time him and Dean had been here.

"Center for Disease Control - we need to get in the building," he called towards those that still blocked his way.

Of course not all those who heard the declaration cleared the way. Some swarmed towards him demanding an explanation that he wished he could give them.

"We're working on it," was the best he could say to any of their desperate requests for answers.

Finally he made it inside the packed lobby where he instantly looked for somewhere to let Dean rest. The best he could come up with was propping his brother against a wall.

"I'm going to get help. Are you going to be okay for a minute?"

"I'll be super," he replied hoarsely though his sunken eyes and short, shallow breaths screamed that he was anything but okay.

It was the first time in hours that Sam had seen Dean under bright light and he realized that now Dean's face was slick with sweat. His brother was trying uselessly to fumble out of his jacket. Ignoring Dean's silent protest, Sam helped slip Dad's old jacket off of Dean. Taking it under his arm, he patted Dean on the shoulder before heading to the front desk.

The staff at the front desk was already surrounded, but he caught sight of a nurse that was trying not to be seen on her rounds and ran towards her. "Hey, we need some help over here."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to wait," the flustered nurse replied.

She tried to walk past him but Sam blocked her progress. "This can't wait. My brother can't wait," he urgently insisted. "He can't walk, he can't breathe and he's coughing up blood. A lot of blood."

"As scary as that can be, there are actually a lot of reasons why someone could be coughing up blood and they're not all serious. I have patients that have been waiting. You're going to need to wait in line and talk to the front desk about our emergency procedures."

He knew she was just doing her job and was obviously way in over her head to say the least, but for all he knew his brother was dying so right now he could give a crap about her need to do her job.

"Look at him." As her eyes remained impatiently on him, he clutched her arm and his tone took on a fiery intensity that would have made Dean proud. "Look at my brother!"

"I will call an officer over here."

"Just look at him, _please_," Sam begged once more with a quiet desperation that finally convinced the older woman's eyes to move to Dean.

When he too looked at Dean he wasn't actually sure what his brother was doing. While he remained barely propped up against the wall Dean's brow was creased in apparent confusion. He seemed to be closely watching something to the side of him, but there was nothing there. Sam cringed as Dean suddenly leaned over towards the potted palm at his side and resumed hacking up a mucus mix of blood onto the dirt of the pot.

"Are you telling me he doesn't need medical attention?"

"That's not what I'm saying." He let her arm go as her eyes softened. "He's obviously very ill, just like everyone else here and I'm sorry."

"But you won't help him?"

"What I'm trying to tell you is that we _can't_ help him."

"What?"

"Sir, this is a small community hospital. We don't have the capacity to house half of this town. We don't have a chair for your brother, let alone a bed, monitoring equipment or a doctor."

"Where's Dr. Hammond?"

"She's not currently available."

"Is she sick?"

"No, she's working with the federal authorities to deal with this situation."

"How many people are sick?"

"Sir, I'm sorry, I can't share that information with you."

Sam didn't try flashing his badge again, because at this point it sounded like the real thing was in town. "Fine. Where's the next closest hospital?"

"I'm going to have to ask that you just take your brother home and keep him well hydrated. I'm also going to need get your address."

"He doesn't need water, he needs a hospital."

"We're the only hospital within the quarantine area. Additional facilities are being set up at the high school and we will notify you..."

"Quarantine area? You're saying we can't leave."

"For the safety of the surrounding communities as of fifteen minutes ago the road has been closed until further notice. Now if I could just get your address and have you fill out this form..."

But by the time the woman looked up from her clipboard, Sam had disappeared into the crowd. He walked swiftly back to Dean's side, ignoring any attempt the nurse might have made to call him back. Dean caught on a moment later that they were heading for the exit, not for a room.

"They won't help me?" Dean asked groggily.

His grip on Dean tightened as they moved back through the wall of the sick and confused people. Dean was becoming too exhausted to mask his fear about what was happening to him and that scared the hell out of Sam. But the nurse had been right.

"No. They _can't_ help us, " Sam replied as he led Dean back towards the car.

Dean was quiet as they squeezed through the crowd. He looked bewildered and was probably focusing on trying not spew on the people they hurried by. For the most part Dean was basically letting Sam carry his weight and it was freaking Sam out. He was rushing his brother away from the only people who could have helped. What was he supposed to do with him now?

"Did you get a copy of the patient records?" Dean asked as they made it to the car.

Maybe he'd just have to kill him and put them both out of their misery. Sam couldn't believe that Dean wouldn't let go of this. Even if he couldn't walk, Dean was still every bit as stupidly stubborn as usual.

"Dean, forget the case. It's over."

Sam shifted his hold on Dean so that he could open the passenger side door. At that moment Dean pulled free. His brother just managed to catch the top of the car for support.

"What? Look at all those people. This thing's just getting warmed up."

"Twelve people. You told me this thing only took twelve people a decade. I saw the nurse's clipboard. They've had over forty six families in there so far tonight."

"Son of a bitch. Obviously it just stepped up it's game. You need to go back in there and get a list of who's sick." Dean stopped to cough and grimaced before continuing. "There's enough victims now there's no way even you'll be able to miss the pattern."

"No," Sam replied firmly. "Look, you were right, Dean. There's something at the sanitarium – it's a legit case. But this..." he said with a motion towards the crowd outside the hospital, "there is no pattern. This is not a vengeful spirit or witchcraft and it's not your fault. This is a real, honest to god outbreak and we're right in the middle of it."

"You're wrong. This is no damn coincidence and we're not walking away from these people. You understand me?"

"You are one of these people, Dean, and I'm not going to watch you die. Not like this. Get in the car or I'll put you in it." It could have been a long stare off but Dean's knees looked ready to buckle.

"Like to see you try," Dean huffed as he collapsed into the seat.

As soon as Dean was in, Sam slammed the door shut behind him. He opened the back passenger door, tossed Dean's jacket on the seat and dug around for anything that resembled a viable liquid. Finally he found yesterday's unfinished Dr. Pepper. Hopefully Dean would be desperate enough to get the taste of blood out of his mouth that he would down it regardless of the taste.

He settled in the driver's seat and couldn't figure out what was with the look Dean was giving him. Now instead of looking frightened or worried his brother looked pissed again.

"Why are the keys still in the ignition?" Dean asked with a venomous glare.

"Excuse me if I'm a little too busy trying to get you some help to keep track of a stupid set of keys."

"Get your priorities straight. I need to know you're going to take care of my baby."

"Don't even start," Sam warned. "Here, you need to drink."

Dean looked ready to argue but again apparently couldn't come up with a valid defense. He snatched the plastic bottle from Sam's hand, twisted the top off and greedily downed a gulp. For a second Sam thought he was going to have to take it away from Dean if he didn't slow down, but before he could Dean kicked the door open and spit it out on the grass.

He made a face at the bottle. "Dude, that's nasty."

Sam shrugged. "It's not like we've got bottled water and it's two in the morning. It's that or beer until we find a vending machine."

"Well give me a damn beer. I could use a drink."

"You haven't eaten in two days, I'm not giving you a beer."

Under his breath Dean muttered something mocking that Sam didn't quite catch. Dean closed the car door, but rolled the window down. "At least drive so we can get some air moving here and give me my jacket."

If Dean was so hot there was no reason why he would need his jacket and if he was so cold there was no reason to put the window down and let in the cold night air. Sam gave him a suspicious look but snatched the jacket off the back seat for his brother. He stopped short of giving it to him and first dug the whiskey flask out of the pocket. Sam flashed it to Dean before stuffing it far under the driver's seat.

"Oh come on," Dean grumbled.

"Still want the jacket?" Sam asked as he dangled it between them.

"Screw you too."

Looking away from Sam, Dean played the petulant kid for a few moments longer before giving up and returning to the Dr. Pepper. He took a swig, but then returned the cap and set it aside. Sam could tell by the face that Dean made that it wasn't the taste, but the pain in swallowing that had made him discard the bottle.

Dean didn't say anything further as he leaned back in the seat. The full extent of his exhaustion was obvious as his head lolled to the side. Sam almost thought that he had passed out when Dean spoke again.

"You going to check out those symbols?"

"No. I'm getting you out of here."

The main road might be blocked but there had to be more than one road out of this place. It wasn't like Sam was just going to take Dean back to the motel room and watch him die.

"You think we just leave town and this just goes away? Wouldn't that mean I'm right?"

"This isn't a competition and this isn't going to just go away. You're the one that said you're just sick. I'm taking you to a hospital."

"Sure. Great plan. After all, this one did such a bang up job of fixing me."

He was done arguing with Dean. The more he said the more it encouraged Dean to say and his brother couldn't talk without a seriously pained look on his face. As Sam drove back down the street he saw Dean's eyes flutter closed.

"You're wrong, Sammy," Dean mumbled on the edge of passing out. "I saw 'em."

"You saw who?" he asked patiently.

"Spirits...crowd was full of 'em..."

Sam's sweaty palms gripped the wheel tightly as Dean's head fell forward. His brother was out for now while Sam's mind was racing faster than ever with the possibility that Dean's weird fascination with empty spaces in the hospital and crowd outside hadn't just been feverish hallucinations.

He trusted Dean implicitly. The only reason he was doubting him on this case was because Dean was so emotionally tied into it. But what if Dean was right? He either had to get Dean out of town or he had to stay and deal with this thing. He couldn't do both and only one of the choices was going to save his brother.


	9. Chapter 9

**Your reviews are such wonderful motivation - thank you for writing them! I'm so glad folks are enjoying reading as much as I'm enjoying writing.**

* * *

Sam had been holding out hope for a dirt road, open field or anything else that looked passable. He didn't care that Dean would kill him for taking the freshly rebuilt Impala off road. No such luck anyway. When the authorities had said that there was only one road out of town they hadn't been kidding.

There was the one road and then there was dense forest and then there was the ocean. He supposed there was always the option of taking a boat, but aside from the fact that the harbor was no doubt being watched it was time to be honest with himself. Dean was right.

There was no running from this. The timeframe on this disease was too short. Too short to be biological and too short for Sam to waste precious time trying to get Dean to more people that couldn't help him. If he was going to save his brother he was going to have to do it himself.

While it was about the last thing he had wanted to do, there wasn't anything that he could do with Dean aside from bring him back to the motel. His brother had been out cold for most of Sam's attempts to get them out of town and hadn't been together enough to tell Sam when he was going to vomit. Dean needed water, clean clothes and he needed to be in bed. He didn't need anymore of getting jolted around in a car that was just driving in circles.

Sam was surprised how hard it was not being able to talk to Dean about what was going on. For as independent as he thought he was, until he was unable to get feedback from his brother he hadn't realized how much he depended on bouncing ideas off of him. Right now Sam was pretty sure that Dean didn't even know that they were back at the same motel let alone what was happening to him.

He had gone through every piece of information he could find on the town, the sanitarium, on epidemics and plagues. Anything that could even begin to explain what was happening to his brother and the other people in this town.

Like Dean had said, if this was a standard contagion there was no reason why only Dean would be affected. In past plagues some people survived, others didn't. No matter how anyone tried to make sense of it, it just happened. But even a lot of those survivors got sick and just happened to survive it.

He'd been at Dean's side for nearly their entire time in Oregon. With as much as he'd been cleaning Dean up there was no way he hadn't been exposed to any pathogen in massive quantity. Yet his only problem was that he was exhausted from watching his brother suffer. In families all across the town the disease was doing the same thing.

Dean had thought this was a case because it seemed like something was picking and choosing who it was taking in the families. Fathers and sons. It was why he had thought Dean had come, but it turned out that at least one of the original victims hadn't been a father. Dean was right that he needed to get a hold of that list of infected that the hospital was keeping, but Dean was in no condition to be left to take care of himself.

Right now figuring out the symbols they'd found at the sanitarium was the best lead that he could work on from here. He'd downloaded the photos he'd taken onto his laptop and had been trying to match them up to anything. They just weren't normal ritual markings and he didn't have the resources here to go into the obscure. Bobby might know what they were but there was no way to accurately enough describe the markings over the phone.

It had taken a long series of random internet searches for him to realized that he was looking for the wrong thing. There were so many different flowing symbols in the circle because the symbols weren't symbols like he was thinking. They were letters. They just weren't characters from the Latin alphabet.

As far as he could tell from the pictures he'd found online, they were maybe Arabic or some version of it. The problem was that he didn't know a word of Arabic and he wasn't having any success with the online dictionaries.

He lifted his head from the computer screen as he saw Dean shift out of the corner of his eye. He looked towards his brother in the naive hope that something had changed for the better. But if anything, Dean looked worse. At least when he had been asleep Dean had almost seemed comfortable. Now on the edge of waking his brother's expression was twisted in sadness.

* * *

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 1987_

"Daddy?"

Dean's small voice wavered as he desperately looked up to his dad silently begging him to see him. He struggled to keep the tough face that he was supposed to wear. Always he tried to be strong like Mom would have wanted and like Dad told him to, but he didn't know how he could be strong now. Whether or not he saw him, Dad was dead. And it was his fault.

He hadn't come soon enough. He had known something was wrong for days. Dad had needed him and he hadn't come. And Dad knew it too. Dean was sure that was why Dad's ghost wouldn't look at him. Dean didn't blame him.

Now he was going to be alone. They would have to go live with Pastor Jim and once Pastor Jim found out that he had let both Mom and Dad die he wouldn't let him stay to take care of Sammy anymore. If he stayed with Sammy, his little brother would die too.

His jaw was tensed so hard to stop the quivering of his lip that it hurt. Despite his best effort, a tear rolled over his eyelash and streamed down his cheek. He just wanted his family back.

"Don't be afraid, child."

Dean's big moisture rimmed eyes looked away from the blank ghost of his father and up to the ugly old ghost lady that had just spoken to him. It wasn't until he really looked at her that he realized she wasn't only watching, but smiling like she was happy. Seeing her pleasure in this broke something in Dean.

The grief in his eyes melted to something far darker. She'd done this to his dad. No matter how much he wanted it, there was no bringing Dad back, but he'd seen the ghost lady eat the boy and she wasn't going to do the same thing to Dad's ghost.

"_You_ should be scared," he told her.

He took a wide stance that was nearly a perfect miniature replica of the one his Dad would have taken. Rigidly he stood with trembling hands as he aimed the pistol squarely at the ghost lady's softly smiling face. Right now all he wanted was to hurt her. Rage made him forget how ineffective the gun would be until he had emptied the entire clip into her face.

* * *

"Sorry...I'm sorry, Dad..." Dean mumbled desperately in his sleep.

As he began to wake Dean quickly turned a few shades greener, but Sam had already abandoned his laptop and was on his way to Dean's side. He slipped into the chair he had stationed next to Dean's bed and leaned in towards his brother.

"Dean, hey, you're okay, man." He rested his hand on Dean's forearm and gave it a gentle shake to try to pull him out of whatever nightmare he was having.

Dean almost opened his eyes but then he clenched them closed. Sam clicked off the lamp beside Dean's bed, but Dean continued to wince. His brother shifted his weight then put his hand on the edge of the bed like he thought he was getting up. Sam gently redirected his hand to stop him.

"You need something?"

Dean gave a barely perceptible nod as he kept his eyes cast down. "Gonna be sick again."

It came out as a whimper and it was nearly enough to make Sam sick too. Dean was the strong one, the one that never let anyone see him blink. It was then as he looked down at his trembling brother that Sam's heart sank. After everything Dean had survived, the possibility stuck him that it might be some unseen disease to take his brother. He knew this was the last way Dean would want to go.

"It's okay," Sam replied with a forced nonchalance.

He helped Dean roll onto his side just enough so that he could lean over the edge of the bed and not choke on the off chance that there was really anything left in his stomach. Despite Sam's best efforts he hadn't gotten Dean to drink that much and everything he did drink just seemed to come back up.

As he moved Dean's necklace to the side again, his fingers lingered on the talisman his brother had kept so close for so many years. At one point he had thought Dean wore it all the time for his sake, but Dean had kept it even when he'd left for college and Dean didn't hold on to much. It had never made sense to Sam when he was younger, but he understood Dean now and he got what the talisman meant. That was why he hated the fact that Dean wouldn't let him take it off.

It wasn't that he minded moving it out of the way. It was just that Dean had taken everything else off when the fever kicked in but had been ready to start throwing punches when Sam had tried to take the necklace. It wasn't as if he ever paid attention, but he was sure Dean must take it off when he took showers. Yet Dean was acting like now was different and that made him afraid that Dean's mind had come to the same conclusion his had.

Sam held the blood splattered ice bucket out with one hand and rested the other on Dean's bare shoulder. His brother's skin was far too hot to the touch, but he was distracted from that fact as Dean's entire body shuddered. It was more blood coming up and Sam didn't know where it was all coming from or how to stop it.

It seemed like forever before Dean was laying back on the bed. Even after he'd finished cleaning his brother's face Dean's fatigued eyes were still on him. Sam settled back in the chair beside Dean's bed and waited for whatever Dean obviously wanted to say.

"You asked me why," Dean finally spoke.

His voice was barely above a whisper and Sam wished he wouldn't say anything at all. As much as Sam needed to talk, Dean's breathing sounded pained enough without bringing a conversation into the equation. All Dean was going to do was use up the energy he already didn't have, but if his big brother really wanted to talk Sam couldn't bring himself to tell him to stop.

"Why what, Dean?"

He asked his big brother why about a lot of things, always had, but he rarely got an answer. He couldn't begin to guess which why his brother was referring to.

"Why being sick was different."

"Yeah, but we can talk about it later. Right now you just need to rest."

"I can rest tomorrow...when I'm dead."

"That's not funny."

"I'm not laughing."

"And you're not dying either. I'm going to get you better."

"Can we not do this? Please? I'm tired of pretending. Hell, I'm just tired."

The pleading look in Dean's eyes made Sam bite back further protest even though he knew he didn't want Dean to continue. He knew that look. He knew this speech. They both knew what was happening but saying it out loud solidified it.

"I always knew I'd die bloody," Dean managed to continue. "Comes with the life. It's why I never should have pulled you back into it. I was just scared. I don't care about dying, but living alone...I'm not strong enough."

"Dean..." Sam didn't want Dean to have to say it even more than he just flat out didn't want to hear it.

"This is my death bed. Shut up and let me talk."

As amused as Sam wasn't, there was no use in trying to stop his brother or argue with him. Even when he was barely conscious Dean was about as stubborn as they came. With Sam's silent acknowledgment Dean looked back at him.

"It just got me thinking...if I was so damn sure how I was going die - what did I think would happen to you? I was a selfish bastard for doing this to you. Just like Dad."

"No. All of this, Mom, Dad, Jessica – you. It's because of what I am. You didn't do this to me, Dean."

"I was supposed to protect you."

Sam opened his mouth to protest, but the flash of desperation that crossed Dean's eyes stopped him.

"I don't want to die like this," Dean breathed. "It's past my time. I know it and if some demon gutted me, if I screwed up...so be it. I asked for it, but this.…"

There was so much that Sam wanted to say but he couldn't trust himself to say anything right now and he sure wasn't going to say anything that would feed into Dean's notion that this was the end of the road. As long as they were both still breathing there was still a chance of stopping this.

"You've got to promise me something, Sammy."

Sam nodded before slowly bringing his eyes back to Dean's. "What's that?" he asked hesitantly.

"Promise me you'll get out."

"Out of where?"

"Out of this. All of it. Screw the Demon. Screw everything. I don't care anymore. I can't die knowing I left you in this fight alone."

Sam needed Dean to stop believing that there was no way out of this and start believing that he deserved to live. Dean was stuck on this notion that he should be dead. His brother couldn't have things more backwards in his head.

Dad hadn't sacrificed his soul for Dean just so that Dean could throw away his second chance. But telling Dean that for the hundredth time wouldn't change what Dean believed. Sam wasn't even sure if Dean wanted to be here so if protecting his little brother was the only thing that was keeping Dean fighting then Sam had no qualms about playing that card.

"Then I guess you can't die, because you're right about one thing – I can't do this without you," Sam replied with a forced strength. "Get some rest, okay?"

Sam stood up and moved away from the bed. For both their sake he pretended it was just sweat slipping down Dean's tensed jaw. For a few minutes longer Sam listened to Dean's hitched breaths until they went quiet. He almost forced himself to return to his laptop when Dean spoke again.

"Sam..."

He let the room lapse into silence for a long moment and swallowed hard before answering. "Yeah, Dean?"

"I did see something at the sanitarium."

"Tonight?"

"Yeah. After I fell…I saw myself."

Sam turned back to him with furrowed brows. "What do you mean?"

"I looked up and I saw me. And at the hospital...the spirits, in the crowd...I think they were the people there...the sick ones."

He ran his hand through his hair as he thought about what Dean was telling him. It sounded crazy but it was an awfully coherent assertion for someone that was just delusional. Dean had been right when he'd said that it wasn't unusual that the people marked as insane had the real story.

"They weren't ghosts."

"Don't think so," Dean agreed hazily.

It would explain how Dean could remember having seen Dad as a ghost even when Dad had still been alive. He was about to ask Dean more but his brother's eyes had fallen closed. The information was enough to get him started, but he couldn't be here with Dean and out stopping this at the same time.

Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he looked back to Dean's still form once more before hitting a button on his speed dial and slipping out of the room. Standing right outside the door he looked out over the balcony on the town. Everything about the early morning was still and quiet except for the occasional sirens from an emergency vehicle.

When someone finally picked up he instantly recognized the voice on the other end of the line, but it wasn't the one he had been expecting to get on Ellen's emergency cell. It was Jo. Suddenly he forgot everything he was about to say. He hadn't exactly expected her to be back with her mom.

"Uh...hello?" Jo prompted impatiently. "It's like four in the morning so this better be good."

"Um hey, Jo, it's Sam."

"Sam. You didn't try to kill Dean again did you?" His jaw clamped shut and he must have lapsed into silence for longer than he'd thought. "Sam? You still there?"

"Is your mom okay?"

"She's fine."

"Is she around?"

"Might be. What's going on?"

"Jo, honey, who is it?" he heard Ellen ask sleepily in the background.

"It's just Sam."

There was some kind of hushed argument that he couldn't make out before Ellen came on the line. "Hey, Sam. I've been worried about you boys. I was going to call in the morning to check how the case was going. Oh, and Bobby had a message for ya."

"Why didn't Bobby call us?"

"He tried. He couldn't get through on Dean's phone and he didn't have your new number. Is Dean's phone working?"

"Um…I don't know. No," Sam remembered. "The battery was dead." Just like the flashlight and remote. Sam's mind began to wander when Ellen's voice pulled him back.

"Sam."

It was creepy how she did that. Just by the way she said his name he could tell she knew something was seriously wrong. While he'd never had a mom, he imagined that the way Ellen spoke was the epitome of one. He knew Dean thought so and that was more than half the reason he'd called.

"Is Dean okay?"

"No," he replied honestly. He didn't have time to dance around what was going on. "Ellen, we need help."

By Ellen's quick response, he must have sounded as lost as he felt. "Alright. It's okay, Sam. You just tell me where you are."

"We're off the Oregon Coast Highway just north of…"

"The Oregon coast? Sam…tell me you boys aren't in Green Bay."

"How did you know where we are?"

"You listen up, you gotta get Dean out of there straight away."

"Already tried. The road is blocked and he can't walk out."

"How sick is he?"

It already sounded like Ellen knew more about the situation than he did. "How did you know he was sick?"

"That's what Bobby called about. I was supposed to tell you boys to steer clear of the west coast. Damn it, Sam! You said you were taking the case in Philadelphia."

"Dean turned around in Illinois to come here. Ellen, what's happening?"

"We don't know the whole story yet, but it sure isn't just some people getting sick. You're safe, Dean's not. I'm sorry, that's all I got. I didn't think you boys would be in the middle of this. Call Bobby."

"I tried calling Bobby earlier. He wasn't answering."

"He was on the road tonight, he should be back in now. Try him again."

"I will, thanks."

"And, Sam, where are you boys staying?"

"We're at the Bay Motor Lodge. Room 26...but the whole town's locked down."

"You and Dean need help, don't ya?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Then there's nothing that's going to keep me out. You boys hang in there, Sam. We're just over the border in northern California – don't ask. We'll be there soon as we can."


	10. Chapter 10

**To clarify on Jo's presence here - there's definitely no Dean/Jo coming. They're adorable together bickering like brother and sister, but I don't think Jo was ever intended as a romantic interest for Dean. **

**The most interesting aspect of the series character-wise is the relationship between Sam and Dean as brothers. Dean/anyone in anything more than a one night stand just doesn't fit with that. **

**Plot-wise Ellen is needed to justify Sam leaving Dean's side and Jo to justify Ellen being an hour away in northern California rather than at the Roadhouse twenty-two plus hours away. That and Dean could use all the help he can get right now...**

**

* * *

  
**

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 1987_

When only hollow clicks were coming from the pistol Dean let the empty weapon fall from his suddenly limp hands. The ghost lady stood there smiling all the more as if he had given her a warm hug rather than tried to blow her head to pieces.

His aching arms dropped to his side and his eyes turned to the ground in resignation. Once again he was just a little boy and he felt smaller than ever. If he couldn't make her stop smiling he sure couldn't kill her. How could he kill something that was already dead anyway? He needed his dad.

"You can't hurt me, child," she spoke gently. "But I can help you."

He didn't want her to talk to him like that. Like everything was all right. It wasn't and it never would be again. Slowly he looked back up at her but he shook his head when he did. No one could help him now.

"I will not harm you."

"I don't care if you do," he told her emptily.

If he couldn't save Dad and was no good for Sammy then he wasn't any good to anyone. It didn't matter what she did to him. But he couldn't stop himself from quietly asking, "What did you do to my dad?"

"Your daddy is only trying to help me, but you could help me more. You could save him. Would you like that?"

Dean nodded mutely in reply. If there was any way to bring his dad back, it didn't matter what he had to do. He would do it.

"All I need is a promise."

"Like a pinky swear?" he sniffled. He looked at the still ghost of his otherwise dead father. There really wasn't anything to think about. "What do you want?"

"I merely want to be free. If you promise me you'll return when I need you and your father will live."

* * *

_Bay Motor Lodge - 2007_

The heavy motel curtains were drawn so that the only light in the room was the far table lamp set on the lowest dimmer setting. It felt like a prison. Dean had wanted the television on to 'ease the hospice vibes'. While Sam would give Dean anything he asked for right now, the light from the television had hurt his brother's eyes so Sam had talked him into settling on the radio. That had been a while ago.

At this point he was pretty sure that the radio wasn't any longer registering for Dean, but he left it on anyway. 'Stairway to Heaven' playing in the background while he sat next to his mortally ill brother wasn't exactly comforting. However, anything was better than hearing nothing but Dean's labored breaths.

Walking over to the window, Sam peered out the slit between the curtains onto the rain slick empty street and parking lot. The occasional speeding emergency vehicle was still the only sign of life he'd seen since he had decided to hold up here.

In addition to blocking out the light, the curtains also served as a token bit of protection. If the authorities decided to try to centralize those who were sick Sam wanted to make this place look as vacant as possible. The chances were good that authorities would be snooping around public spots like the motel. There was no way he was going to let anyone take Dean from him unless they really could help him and at this point he didn't see that as a possibility.

He had moved the Impala across the street so that it didn't look like anyone was left staying at the motel. The front desk still knew they were here, but he had paid the room out through the end of the week. He had been prepared to pay the manager enough extra to ensure that the motel had reason not to report them if it came to that, but he hadn't had to.

His story about him and his brother being caught in town during their cross-country road trip had been enough to ensure they wouldn't be bothered. The story was true – he'd just left a few details out. The manager seemed like a good man and Sam was sure that he had genuinely looked as desperate as he'd felt when he'd talked to the man. The guy probably would have offered them a place at his house if he hadn't had to go home to be with his own son.

Now he was just trying to make sense of all of this with Bobby. "Why's it going after Dean and not me?"

"This thing isn't just killing, it's taking sacrifices and it likes the ones with the most kick. First born sons. That's why I wouldn't be any good to you there," Bobby explained.

Sam nodded to himself in understanding as he sat back down. It wasn't fathers and sons. It was just sons, some of which just happened to be fathers.

"And what about the symbols?"

"You said it looked like Arabic? You sure about that?"

Sam used his free hand to click through the online references he had found again. He wasn't sure enough about anything to bet his brother's life on it, but he was pretty sure.

"It's the closet I got. Does it mean anything to you?"

"It sure would add up. I'm thinking Hausa."

It sounded like a liquor. He could sure use one if he didn't so badly need to keep focused right now. "Sorry Bobby, what's that?"

"Hausa," Bobby repeated. "A Nigerian language. It used Arabic characters up until the 1950s."

"Can you read it?"

"What do I sound like - a world dictionary? You need to get your ass to a library, kid."

"If it is Nigerian, what's it doing in Oregon?"

"Well that's the question, ain't it?"

There's no way that Bobby had pulled some obscure language that he didn't know out of nowhere. He had to have some idea what was going on and Sam didn't like that Bobby wasn't just coming out and saying it.

"Do you know what this is, Bobby?" Sam asked outright.

On the other end of the line he heard Bobby sigh. "Got a damn good idea, but it's nothing good. Your brother's non-ghost ghosts he's been seeing around, well, I think they're fetches."

"Fetches..." Sam ran the word through his memory for a moment. "Like a wraith – a spirit double?"

"Bingo. Lot of cultures got some version of them. In British folklore they're apparitions of living people. I think that's what we got here."

"An apparition that would be seen right before someone dies..." Sam reluctantly filled in. "Okay...so I get why Dean is seeing himself, but why's he seeing other ones?"

"Dean's skirting the veil, Sam. Someone in that state isn't likely to have much trouble seeing these things if they're around. A fetch ain't a personal hallucination. Anyone could see them. It just takes being the right place or frame of mind."

It would explain Dean's claims that Sam and him had seen one of these things when it hadn't been affecting them directly even though Sam still wasn't sure why he wouldn't have remembered something like that. The fetch theory could also cover the EMF disturbances and Dean's battery draining.

"I'm with you there, but something has to be creating these fetches, right?"

"That's the thing...not necessarily. Usually they're just omens, but the nearest I can figure is that here they've been drawn out so that these people so that their spirits can be fed on."

"What could do that?"

"Probably a lot of things small scale, but the Hausa, hell, lot of cultures, have stories about soul eaters. Usually they're talked of more like gods or spirits, but traditional Hausa folklore has soul eaters as being humans. Like real nasty witches."

"But from what I've got from Dean and how long this has been going on, this can't be a human."

"That was my thought until you came up with the Hausa script. They say the affect of a Hausa soul eater feeding on a person is a wasting disease."

"Like supernatural tuberculosis."

"If the symptoms fit.... Human or not, a Hausa soul eater is our best bet at this point. This one might just not be human anymore."

"Dean said it only took twelve people a year."

"Sam, there's something you need to about your brother here..."

Sam's eyes shot up from the computer screen as Dean suddenly began thrashing around on the bed. "Bobby, I gotta go. I'll call you back."

He hung up without waiting for Bobby's reply and tossed the phone down on the table before rushing to Dean's side.

* * *

_Inside the Krobath Sanitarium – 1987_

"Okay. I'll help you," Dean replied without much hesitation.

Things couldn't actually get worse than they were now. It wasn't until he really looked at the ghost lady that he realize this whole time she hadn't moved outside of the glowing circle she was standing in. He looked between her and the glowing pictures that must be trapping her.

"How do I get you out of there?"

"All you have to do is join me." Despite her horrid appearance, her motherly tone and promise of bringing back his father had Dean rapt. "Come into the circle and give yourself to me."

He hesitated not because he was afraid about what she meant but because he thought he saw a movement behind her. His eyes went anxiously to his dad's ghost. It hadn't been his imagination. Suddenly Dad's eyes were on him as if his father had been released from a trance. Instead of looking blankly through him his dad was now staring sternly down at him. Quickly Dean reached up to wipe the streaks of tears from his cheeks.

"You stay away from her, son."

Dean's breath hitched in his throat at the sound of his father's voice. It was what he'd wanted to hear more than anything. Relief flooded through him, but for once he couldn't listen to his father's order.

"No. Dad, you'll die."

"If you do this, a lot more than me are going to die."

"But you won't," he replied earnestly.

"Dean, you listen to me. You get away from that thing!"

Dean anxiously looked between the ghost lady and the angry ghost of his father. He really didn't want to kill anyone. Everything Dad did was to save people. Dad was a hero and Dean wanted to be strong like him.

He looked up questioningly to the ghost lady. "Will people really die?"

"Not for a very long time, child, but if you don't do this your Dad will die now."

It wasn't what Dad wanted and maybe it wasn't right, but right now he didn't care. He couldn't live without Dad and Sammy and he sure couldn't let his Dad die. "I'm sorry, Dad."

"Dean, no!"

* * *

Dean had been completely out for a while but was now scooting around on the bed like he was trying to get away from something. He had thrown off most of his blankets and was lying on his stomach with his head pressed into his pillow. His hands clutched the pillow with a white knuckled grip. Sam couldn't quite make out the curses that Dean was huffing.

"Dean, what's go on?"

Dean suddenly pounded his fist on the mattress. His body was too weak to put any real power behind it but the pure frustration came through loud and clear. He wanted to ask Dean what he could do, but he knew his brother was tired of hearing him ask.

Turning away from Sam, Dean curled onto his side. Sam frowned as he saw the blood that Dean had left smeared into the starkly white fabric of the pillow. He turned around to grab a towel to clean up Dean's face but froze as his eyes returned to his brother.

Dean's shifting had kicked his sheets low enough to expose nearly all of his tightly tensed back. Sam's brow creased when he saw something on Dean's skin.

"Close your eyes," he told Dean as he flipped on the lamp next to the bed.

Dean tried to pull away but said nothing as Sam ran his hand over the now raised skin of Dean's lower back. Dean tried to look over his shoulder at Sam, but winced and let his head fall back to the bed.

"How long have you had this rash?"

He was only thinking aloud and not expecting Dean to know the answer. Dean wasn't exactly a conversationalist at the moment and he could have had it for weeks without knowing it was there, but Sam knew for a fact that the marks hadn't been there last night. He'd checked that exact area thoroughly at the sanitarium when Dean had thought he'd cut himself.

Sam tilted his head to get a better angle. "Hold on."

Reaching over, Sam grabbed the complementary motel notepad and pen off the bed stand. It wasn't just some rash. There was something there – a pattern. He did his best to draw a rendering of it and instantly recognized what it was. It was the same sort of characters he was trying to translate from the circle. Sam clicked the lamp back off and returned his attention to Dean.

His brother was lying still on the bed now. He carefully lifted up Dean's head as he switched out his pillow. Sam had lost track of how many pillows and sheets Dean had gone through tonight. He'd already had to break into housekeeping's closet.

Sam started to turn Dean back towards him so that he could clean him but, but Dean stopped Sam from moving him further as he started to look nauseous again.

"Are you dizzy?"

The tense expression on Dean's face as he clenched his eyes closed was answer enough. Sam waited to move him further until Dean eased his grip on his forearm.

With Dean on his back again, Sam propped him up just a bit. With a new damp towel, he wiped off the blood that had smeared over Dean's face. Though Dean was obviously still not happy about it, he had at least stopped complaining aloud.

Before returning to what he had just drawn he really looked at Dean for the first time in a while. Something wasn't right. He ran his hand along his brother's forehead, which had been sweaty for a lot of the night. Now it felt strangely dry but still far too warm.

"Aren't you still hot?"

"Freakin' on fire," Dean croaked.

"You need to try to drink something again."

"Not drinking anymore."

Dean was getting more and more insistent on not even trying to drink. He got that Dean was tired of throwing up but he just kept loosing every possible kind of fluid. He had to be getting more dehydrated by the minute.

"Seriously, Dean."

"No," his stubborn brother replied again.

If he wasn't so sick, Sam would have slugged him when he saw Dean unconsciously run his tongue over his parched lips. Ignoring Sam, his brother sloppily tried to clear the mucus out of his eyes enough to focus.

Shaking his head, Sam surrendered to Dean for the moment. "Same as the circle," he told his brother as he showed him the sketch.

"On my back?"

Sam nodded and saw the relief flood into Dean's eyes. That was exactly why Sam was even bothering showing it to Dean. He knew that Dean wasn't together enough to identify any arcane symbols even if he did know them, but he wanted to prove to Dean that this wasn't just his body giving out, that there was something demonic to this.

Only his brother would be relieved by knowing that. The funny thing was that Sam was relieved too. This really was something they could fight. But the relief was short-lived as something else flashed in Dean's eyes as he stared at the symbol.

"I did this."

"The symbols?"

"No...I started this."

"No you didn't. Dean, we're not starting this..."

Sam went silent as he heard a car engine close enough that it had to be pulling into the lot. He looked towards Dean who was already starting to check out again. Dean obviously hadn't heard anything as his head began slumping to the side.

Sam moved quietly towards the window. Glancing out, he caught a glimpse of a cop car pulling into the parking lot. That was just what they needed. Not only was Dean infected, but he was wanted by the FBI. It was one of the other main reasons Sam was trying to keep Dean in his personal custody.

His mind was racing, but they were just going to have to hope that the officers that better things to do than go room to room. He started to move away from the window when he saw the two 'officers' that stepped out of the car. It was a brunette and a blond that he instantly recognized as Ellen and Jo. After a quick glance towards his brother, he grabbed his jacket and slipped out the door into the misty morning.

"There's Sam," he heard Jo tell Ellen.

Ellen quickly closed the distance between them. As she reached him she set down a grocery bag she was carrying. She put her hands on his shoulders and closely looked him over. Her eyes were full of sympathy and before he realized it, she had pulled him into her arms. With nearly no hesitation he clutched her back He hadn't realized how badly he just needed someone else to be here.

"I'm so sorry about all this," she told him as she slowly released him. "How's Dean?"

"It's not good, Ellen."

She nodded before continuing. "What about you? Are you sure you're up to heading out?"

"I'm ready to end this."

He was beyond completely drained, but it wasn't just from not sleeping. Watching his brother suffer and not being able to do anything about it was killing him. If he could get out of here and do anything of use it would be an incredible relief. He actually felt guilty about how badly he wanted to get away from the room. The last thing he wanted was to leave Dean, but taking care of Dean like this wasn't something he'd ever thought he'd have to do.

"I though you'd say that. That's why Jo's here to help," she added with a pointed stare. Jo just gave a smug smile in return. There was obviously a long story behind this.

Whatever the story, he didn't like that Jo was here. Things couldn't have gone much worse when they'd worked with her. It wasn't anything against Jo. She was a smart girl. Really smart, but she also had a tendency to get in over her head – just like Dean – and he really didn't need anyone else to worry about right now. Then there was the last time that him and her had met, which couldn't have been more awkward.

"You talk to Bobby?" Ellen asked.

"Started to. He thinks..."

"Joanna Beth, just where do you think you're going?" Ellen asked. Sam hadn't even noticed Jo slipping towards the motel room door.

"I'm going to go see Dean."

"No you're not. You stay put."

"Why? I want to see him."

"He doesn't want you to see him," Ellen replied with a certainty that surprised Sam. He and Ellen hadn't talked at all about Jo seeing Dean or who Dean wanted to see him.

"Why wouldn't Dean want to see me?"

"'Cause men's egos are as brittle as eggshells."

Sam raised his brows at that but he didn't disagree, about himself maybe, but not about Dean. Dean was all about putting on the face he wanted the world to see and right now he couldn't do that. He was weak and looked like hell. Ellen was right on this one – Dean wouldn't want anyone seeing him like this, least of all Jo.

"It's not fair of you to ask him to put on a strong face when he needs all the energy he's got." She held her hand out to stop the protest on the tip of her daughter's tongue. "I know you're not asking him to, but he will. If you want to help Dean, you'll just keep your head focused on what you and Sam gotta do."

Jo looked like she had plenty more that she wanted to say, but she seemed to get that she was pushing her luck already. "Fine. I need to check the supplies anyway," Jo replied as she headed back towards the car.

"Nice car," Sam commented with a nod towards the police vehicle.

Ellen just smiled. "Told you there'd be no keeping me out."

The wicked twinkle in her eye was almost enough to make him smile for the first time in longer than he could remember, but the sound of Dean coughing inside the motel room pulled him back.

He hurried back into the room and back to Dean. It wasn't until he reached for a towel that he realized Ellen was right behind him. "I got this, Sam," she said as she took the towel from him. "Nothing you do here is going to save Dean. You gotta get going."

"I know."

But he was still having a hard time forcing himself to turn away from his brother. For all he knew this was the last time he'd see him alive. Not that this was living. He knew Dean would want him to fix this or end it and he was going to fix it.

He almost turned to go, but stopped. "He won't drink," he warned Ellen.

"He won't will he?" She looked back at Sam and raised a brow at that. "You better go, Sam. Your brother and I are gonna have a little talk about what he is and isn't doing."

Again Sam almost found the corner of his lips turning up just a bit. He got why Dean liked Ellen and he wondered if Mom really had been anything like her.

"Thanks, Ellen."

"Don't thank me yet. You just watch yourself," she told him as he headed for the door. "And don't you dare leave me with this boy. I don't have the patience to put up with his mouth once he's up and talking again."


	11. Chapter 11

**It's not in anyway critical to the story, but just so there's no confusion for those who haven't seen 'Born Under a Bad Sign' in that episode a possessed Sam ties Jo up to use her as bait to lure Dean in, which is what Sam and Jo are referring to in their exchange in this chapter. Many thanks for the reviews!**

* * *

To say Ellen was worried didn't begin to touch it. She knew full well why Sam had been reluctant to leave. It's not as if she would have been able to leave Jo if their roles were reversed. Hell, she didn't like sending her daughter off as a perfectly healthy, competent young woman. She'd tracked Jo half way across the country just to stop her from getting involved in this but now they didn't have a choice. John's eldest was out of time.

She'd skipped the typically mandatory speech about how Sam better bring her daughter home safe because there was no other option. He would be as careful as he could and if Jo had any sense about her she'd do the same. It wasn't as if it was the Winchester boy's fault Jo was here and he had enough weighing on his mind without being burdened further.

It scared the hell out of her, but looking at his frail form, she honestly couldn't say whether or not Sam's older brother would live. Yet even if his brother died here, this was no way for Sam to remember a strong young man like Dean. After his father and now seeing Dean like this, Sam couldn't likely be feeling anymore helpless. If it was going to happen, she couldn't help but think for Sam's sake that it would be better if he wasn't here for it.

Not that she had any intention of letting it happen. She wasn't under any delusion that if she buried one of them she wasn't burying them both and she sure as hell hadn't come here to bury either of the Winchester boys. That's why she needed to get a read on what Dean's current condition was as swiftly as possible.

She started with a quick survey of the darkened room. The foul smell in the air was the first thing she had noticed walking in. The stained carpet and piles of dirtied towels and bed sheets explained that quick enough. Little wonder this room smelled of death with all this blood lying around. She didn't even want to think about the fact that it had all come from the boy that lay motionless in front of her.

As she looked down she noticed that the ice bucket at her feet was partially filled with blood and other fluids. If that was what Sam had been using the ice bucket for she was sure that Sam wasn't understating just how dehydrated Dean was. God these boys needed a mother.

Half the times she'd seen Dean come through the Roadhouse he had looked incapable of sitting still like he had more energy coursing through his blood than he knew what to do with. A young man like that should never be so still. Her hand set gently on Dean's feverish forehead. She felt his brow move ever so slightly at the touch. He wasn't fully out.

"Hey there, sweetie."

His eyes didn't open but his brow creased further as he obviously tried to process where she had come from. Judging by the mixed expressions that flashed over his still face, if the poor thing even recognized who she was he probably thought he was hallucinating.

"Ellen?" he asked hoarsely.

She couldn't help but smile gently at the sound of his voice even if it was barely there. He recognized her. That at least was a good sign. "In the flesh," she confirmed.

"I didn't want this," he mumbled softly.

"Oh, I know you didn't, baby."

Ellen ran her hand through his matted hair to let him know that she was really there and that she didn't give a damn about any of what he was fretting about. She didn't know the full story here and she really didn't need to. Bobby had told her enough for her to know that Dean wasn't at fault here. It wouldn't matter if he were.

His eyes opened ever so slightly. Just enough for her to see the hurt in them. From the distance in his gaze it looked as if he was somewhere else and didn't even see the room around him.

"I can't save them."

She wasn't all that certain what he was talking about now, but again she didn't care. All she wanted was to be able to take all this weight off his shoulders no matter what the cause. It should never have been there to begin with.

"That's all okay, but Dean, you listen up. I need you to drink something for me."

The usually sturdy boy looked as if he was so fragile that he could shatter. He barely had the energy to shake his head in protest to her.

"Oh no," she warned him. "It wasn't a question."

The boy wasn't in any position to be calling the shots and he was going to drink. She'd brought an arsenal in that grocery bag of hers. Ginger ale, frozen fruit pops, chicken broth and plenty else he'd like less. Dean might think he'd sworn off liquids for good, but she'd get him hydrated one way or another.

* * *

"Are we okay?" Sam asked Jo.

He was so far from wanting to have this conversation right now, but he needed to know where they stood before they got started. There wouldn't be time for anything personal to slow them down and he honestly needed to know if she was even comfortable being around him. As he finished buttoning the police uniform he turned around to look at her.

"If you try to tie me up again I'll gut you like a fish. Otherwise we're great," she replied with a grin. "But just so we're clear, I'm doing this for Dean. And I'm driving."

"No you're not."

"Hey, I stole this thing fair and square…" At his look she caved. "Okay my mom did, but same diff. I helped and no offense, but you look hell. I'm not letting you drive me anywhere."

At least they agreed that Dean was the top priority even if they couldn't agree on much else. The smugness left Jo's face as the gravity of the situation seemed to sink in. Sam realized he probably had it written all too clearly across his face.

"How's Dean really doing, Sam?"

He couldn't bring himself to say the truth about Dean's condition because the truth was that his brother was dying. That wasn't something he could admit even to himself and Jo seemed to read as much from his face.

"We're gonna save him," she promised. With that she hopped into the drivers seat and looked back up at him. "So where do we start?"

"The library, I guess." He climbed into the passenger seat beside her. "We need to translate these symbols and...hold on."

Sam dug through his jacket pocket as his cell phone began to ring. "It's Sam."

"If you ever hang up on me like that again, I'm going to sting you up, you hear me, boy?" Bobby ranted on the other side of the phone.

Sam held the mouthpiece against his shoulder as he looked to Jo. "Go ahead and drive," he mouthed to her. "Yeah, I got that, Bobby. Sorry," Sam continued into the phone. "Dean was having some trouble."

"Is he okay?"

"He's not too much worse," Sam replied after a moment. "Jo and I are on our way to the library. What were you saying about the jump in the number of sacrifices?"

"Your idiot brother. Do you know he's been to Green Bay before?"

"Dean said he had been here with Dad, but I checked Dad's journal. Dad wasn't here in '97."

"Neither was your brother. Wrong decade, you idget."

"This thing takes sacrifices every ten years, right?"

"And what's ten plus ten?"

"Twenty years ago? All this stuff Dean's talking about happened in 1987? He was eight."

"Just barely and you were barely out of diapers."

"That's why I didn't remember," Sam said mostly to himself.

"What does your brother remember?"

"I don't know. It's Dean. He's not exactly Mr. Care and Share. He kept remembering things, but said there was a gap. Now he's saying he did this."

"I'm sure he thinks he did," Bobby replied. "Your dad loved you boys more than anything, but he didn't always have his head on straight when it came to you kids."

* * *

_Singer __Salvage__ Yard – South Dakota - 1987_

John Winchester burst through Bobby's front door like his hair was on fire. If the man wasn't careful, Bobby might see to just that. Yet despite his better judgment, Bobby eased his grip on the trigger of the shotgun in his hand. Given that the man's children were outside he'd have to settle for just beating John over the head with it.

"Just come on in, John. Don't mind the fact I was about to shoot you a new one," he grumbled with a defiant splash of holy water to John's sour face.

John's scowl deepened as he wiped the moisture from his face, but he kept his eyes locked on Bobby's. "There's something wrong with Dean."

"Why didn't you just say so?" Bobby replied as he set the shotgun aside.

"I can't deal with him right now."

The sympathetic understanding in Bobby's face vanished as he got a good look at the expression John was wearing. John was all pissed to hell about something and Bobby was sure it didn't really have a damn thing to do with either one of those little boys sitting out in the back seat of that car parked out front.

"Is that so?" Bobby asked suspiciously. "So what? You're dumping him here? What's that kid gone and done that's so damn awful you can't look at him anymore?"

"The thing in Green Bay - he made a deal with it, Bobby."

"Uh huh," he replied with clear skepticism. Bobby nodded his head out the window towards the sullen older boy that was staring off at nothing. "That kid went out and made a deal with a devil...for kicks? Do I really look that stupid? He did it to save you didn't he? Didn't he, John?"

He didn't need a verbal answer. "That rotten little brat," Bobby mocked. "What are you waiting for? Go beat the crap out of the kid on account that his father is a stupid ass! What the hell were you thinking going after that thing with those boys, Winchester? I told you to leave it alone!"

"It doesn't matter why he did it. Now we're screwed."

"No. Your son is screwed and not because of anything he did or didn't do. That much I know."

"I'm the one that has to clean this up."

"Well boohoo. I'm feeling real damn sorry for ya. Just rub some dirt in it. I swear, if I hear you whining about that kid one more time...you've got no idea how easy you've got it with him."

There was no point in even trying. It wasn't as if Bobby was even that interested in convincing the man to keep his sons with him when he was on that much of a tear. Either John or the boy would say something and things would get out of hand.

John might not realize it, but he was practically a god to Dean and it wouldn't take much for John to unintentionally crush the boy. Better to try to pick up the pieces before it got any uglier.

"Go do what you have to. Your sons will be here when you're done pouting."

Bobby stormed away from him and let the door slam behind him as he headed out to the Impala, but he was all smiles by the time he reached the boys. As soon as little Sammy saw him the boy bounded from the back and ran over to hug Bobby's leg.

"Unky Bobby!"

"Look how big you're getting," Bobby said with a smile down at the little boy. He ruffled Sammy's hair before looking to Dean who was still sitting in the back seat.

A big pout came to Sammy's lip and he pulled at the bottom of Bobby's shirt. "Make Dean talk."

"He ain't talking?" Sammy shook his head. "Don't worry, kid. I'll take care of your brother. Go on inside."

"Okay."

With that Sammy was off to find his Dad. This was no place for kids, but Sammy had been around these parts before. Usually it was Dean that kept him out of trouble but John was inside and the man could bother himself to deal with his own son for two minutes longer. With Sammy scampering off Bobby leaned into the car to look at Dean who still wouldn't look at him. The kid was practically catatonic.

"What's happened to you boy?"

When Dean still didn't acknowledge him, Bobby walked around to the side of the car Dean was sitting on. He opened the door and reached in to unbuckle him. Carefully he pulled the silent child into his arms. The kid was getting heavy, but considering that he had turned eight a couple months back he ought to weigh more. What the boy needed was a hearty meal.

It took far too long but finally Bobby felt two small arms wrap tentatively around his neck. He hugged the boy tighter. "I did something really bad, Uncle Bobby," the boy in his arms confessed quietly into his ear. "Now Dad hates me."

* * *

"But Dean didn't even know what he'd done," Bobby explained to Sam. "He honest to god couldn't remember. Some kind of hypnosis stunt your dad had found someone to pull. He couldn't find a way to stop this thing so he thought he'd found a way to keep Dean away from it. Screwed your brother up for a while, but he was always a strong kid. He got over it."

Sam wasn't so sure he had. Dean wasn't as strong as everyone thought he was and he definitely wasn't okay. Right now Sam wasn't either.

"Sam?"

He looked to Jo as she spoke and followed her eyes to his hand. His grip on the phone was bordering on tight enough to break it. He forced himself to ease up and steady his breath but it didn't help what he was feeling. All along he had been assuming that his soul eater or whatever it was had screwed with Dean's memory, but it had been Dad.

"I don't think Dean needs to know that," Sam told Bobby.

"No reason he does," Bobby agreed.

"But if his memory was wiped clean, why did Dean still latch onto this case?"

"Because it wasn't wiped. Just covered up and this thing is one smart broad. She found a way to call your brother in regardless of what he remembered. Your dad was there to keep Dean out in '97, but he wasn't here this time around. I'm sorry, kid."

Right now Sam was so mad at Dad it was hard for him to think straight, but even with as mad as he was he knew one thing. Even if he hadn't been able to show it and even if he'd used the hell out Dean, Dad had loved them and he'd done the best he could. In the end he'd given his life for Dean. Dad wouldn't have gone screwing around in Dean's head if he'd seen any other option.

"Bobby, if Dad couldn't stop this – how are we going to?"

"I'm working on that part. Call me when you got something. I'll do the same."

"Okay, Bobby. Thanks."

Sam sighed as he hung up the phone. For a minute he'd forgotten that he wasn't alone. He glanced towards Jo's expectant face as she pulled into the library's empty lot.

"Well?" she finally asked.

"Bobby's working on it."

He was thankful when Jo reluctantly let it go at that. She walked by his side to the back door before giving him a look as he worked the lock.

"You know we've gotta be the only people in the world to break into a library."

Sam barely heard her as he ushered her inside. At least this was a small town and the library directors seemed to share Jo's thought. There was no security alarm. Of course if this was any other town there would probably be rioting in the streets. Here everyone had just gone home. It made the town look as if it was already dead.

From what he'd seen of the news this thing was so focused on this town alone that the news people were covering it as a biological terrorist attack – probably why everyone was hiding in their houses. Unfortunately for those people, there was no way to lock this thing out of their homes.

"We're looking for anything on Hausa," he told Jo. While she hit the foreign language section he headed for the reference only area.

"This stuff wasn't online?" Jo called to Sam. "Don't they have those online translators or something?"

"Yeah, they do, but after Bobby identified the language I looked it up. It's widely spoken for an African language, but the language changed its alphabet over fifty years ago. This is the old script we're looking for."

A minute later Jo was back at his side holding a book out to him. "No script and it's got some other languages mixed in, but it's got basic Hausa grammar."

"It'll help. I don't get the impression that the grammar changed much." He thumbed through an ancient looking dictionary he'd pulled off the back reference shelf. "This one's got the script and it's a match."

Sam led Jo to the nearest table and pulled out the sketch he'd made from Dean's back. "Go ahead and start on this one. I'll work on the ritual circle."

"On it and no pressure, right? We got a whole five minutes to figure this language out."

With the dictionary open in front of him Sam looked back up at Jo and realized that timing was the issue that kept tugging at the back of his mind. The timing in all of this just didn't add up. Dean had been sick since just after arriving in Oregon two days ago. No one else that they knew of had lived that long after being infected.

* * *

Dean was in a haze. At some point Sam had turned into Ellen, which somehow wasn't as weird as it sounded. Distantly he could feel his body. It was barely his anymore. Just a useless lead weight. When he focused on it he was trapped inside it. Paralyzed and lingering in what he just wanted to end.

When he focused on not being in it he was still in the dark but the physical pain was gone. Mentally it all hurt like hell anyway he played it so this was easier. He'd been here before and this time when the reaper came he wasn't going to hesitate. This time he would make the right call before anyone had the chance to sacrifice themselves for him. He was ready.

"You returned, child."

His soul went cold as the hotel fazed out and he was standing staring at a bunch of boxes. This was where he'd found Dad and that was no reaper speaking to him. It seemed as if time had gone away and it was that night. He was that boy. Suddenly he didn't hate that he'd done what he had. He only hated that he would do the same thing again every last soul in this town be damned. He would do it again not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was the only thing he was strong enough to do.

In his body he had to struggle to find his voice, but not here. Maybe he should be trying to get back into his body, but he couldn't fight anymore. Not there. There he was just a useless puking, bloody bag of bones that couldn't even die with dignity. This was easier and he was tired.

"Really been missing you, bitch," he told the horrid creature.

She was every bit as wretchedly ugly as he remembered. Obviously she'd been human once but it was like all the humanity had rotted from her and this thing before him was what was left. The only thing that was different was that she didn't have the transparency he'd remembered her having before, but the guy walking around without his body wasn't one to be calling the kettle black.

He wouldn't change what he'd done, but he could change now. He was no longer a scared little boy with his Dad's life hanging over his head. Now he was just a lonely man that had managed to find a more passive way to kill his Dad.

Anyway he cut it, Dad was gone and he was left here fighting and he would fight it. The only thing at risk now was himself and that was a poker chip he was willing to gamble with. No one else was going to die because of him.

There was nothing solid about what he interpreted around him. Things kept shifting and slipping. Parts of the hotel room, parts of here and it took him a good long while to see that he wasn't alone with this thing.

The room was full of them. Half spooks like him. Cattle just lined up for the slaughter. Because of him. Little kids and dads and innocent people that didn't even know they were here and didn't deserve to die like this.

Then he remembered it all over again. He'd already been here with her this time around. That's why she wasn't paying a whole hell of a lot of attention to him. They'd already had this conversation and she was too busy picking off the others. He'd already tried to stop her.

There'd been some kid. Couldn't have been any older than Sammy had been last time they'd been through town and she'd gulped him down like a White Castle cheeseburger. He'd tried to bust into the circle to stop it and that's when he'd got shot back to the motel room with one damn nasty jolt.

A direct assault obviously wasn't going to do crap, but he wasn't going to stand here and watch her keep munching on souls. These people had all gotten sick after him. She just needed to take him and leave the rest of these poor suckers out of it. If she didn't want him in the circle he was sure that was where he needed to get. Near as he could tell the only way to get in was to get her to open wide and try to take a bite.

"Hey, I was in line first. Just take me already!" his specter shouted at her as she started to move in on another victim.

Finally she shot a dismissive look towards him. "You forget that you gave yourself to me. You will remain as long as you are needed."

"So you're saying if I die now..."

"You won't."

"Right..." A dark smirk came to his lips. She'd given him all the information he needed.

He closed his eyes in preparation for the physical assault that he knew was coming. He forced himself to return his focus to the motel room. To the weakness and pain that swallowed him up there.

With a ragged, chocking breath his body struggled back towards consciousness. He gagged at the return of the thick coppery taste that filled his mouth. It would be so easy to leave again, but Ellen's touch pulled him the rest of the way back. Or at least as far back as he could get.

Blindly he reached out to her and struggled for the words. His mind was too muddled and his vocal cords too cramped, but finally they came, "Ellen, you've gotta kill me."


	12. Chapter 12

"Uh!" Jo groaned as she slammed her hand down on the dusty dictionary. "I need a dictionary for this stupid dictionary, Sam. What's an 'immolation'?"

Sam just sent a look to Jo's apparently random question before he returned his eyes to his own notes that he was trying to keep straight. He needed her to focus on the symbol and not ramble on about every big word in the English portion of the Hausa dictionary. This was as bad as researching with Dean.

His jaw tightened at the thought. What he wouldn't give to have Dean here annoying the hell out of him right now. If he lost Dean here he didn't know what he would do. But he couldn't do what Dean wanted.

There was no out of this. Maybe for Dean, but not for him. He couldn't go back and live a 'normal' life. Pretending that he ever could had been a mistake. There was a responsibility in knowing what they knew. He had tried to ignore that before, but he couldn't anymore. Not now that he knew what he was.

In truth he was scared out of his mind at the thought of Dean not being here to watch him. Not because he needed Dean to protect him, but he was terrified that soon enough someone was going to have to be saving these people from him.

As he focused back in on the grammar book he heard Jo tapping her fingers impatiently on the table. He looked up to realize that she was staring expectantly at him. She wasn't just being annoying with her question, like Dean would have been, she was actually waiting for an answer. He straightened in his chair and the knot in his stomach grew tighter.

"Why?" he asked apprehensively. "That's not what you got from the symbol on Dean's back, is it?"

"If you don't like it you look. All these little squiggly marks look the same to me. Check it out."

Jo turned the dictionary and pushed it back across the table towards Sam along with the sketch he had made. It was the third of three words. They had translated the other two words – 'first' and 'last' and hadn't been able to figure out the context. The last word though was painfully clear. This was just getting worse, not better.

"That's it," he confirmed. Immolation could mean a lot of things depending on who was saying it, but it was pretty clear what it meant here. "It's a willing self sacrifice."

"That doesn't make any sense. It's not like Dean asked for this."

"Long story," he replied with a sigh. He looked up from his notes with an even grimmer expression than he had worn even just a moment earlier. "I know what the soul eater is trying to raise."

"What?"

"Itself."

"Uh huh...I think you read that book wrong, genius. If it's already here I'm pretty sure it doesn't need to raise itself."

"I reworked it twice. I'm right about this. I was just wrong before. That circle Dean found, it's not for a ritual. It's a binding circle."

* * *

"Ellen, you've gotta kill me."

Ellen's heart shattered at Dean's helpless plea. He desperately grasped out to her and without hesitation she abandoned the chair she sat in to kneel down beside his bed where she could wrap her arms protectively around his trembling body. She'd never known him as a child, but he looked as vulnerable as a newborn now.

Only a few days earlier she had talked to this spitfire of a young man. He'd been so painfully eager to run into the height of danger and to do what he could to save a bunch of people he would never even meet. She didn't know or care why he did it. She just wished he didn't.

It was all good and well for these boys, for their father and her husband to run out and play hero. They did good work and they saved a lot of lives, but they sacrificed absolutely everything to do it. And she was tired of picking up the pieces. She couldn't bear to watch one more good man be laid down before his time.

"Dean Winchester, you stop talking like that," she told him firmly in a mom tone that would have frozen him in his tracks if he had any sense about him. "You're not checking out on me."

"No choice. Listen..."

"I'll full well listen once you're up and about, but I ain't listening to this. Do you have any idea how many ways your brother would kill me if I let you go? God I could strangle you both."

She placed a soft kiss on his burning forehead before returning to her chair and wringing out a fresh cool cloth to lay there. He'd been taking ice chips and drinking best he could, but his breathing was so labored and he had lost control over so much of his own body. She couldn't begin to imagine how much weak he felt and she didn't blame him one bit for wanting out. Getting well couldn't be looking terribly likely from his point of view.

While she'd been hoping like hell that he'd drop it and go back to resting, he persisted. "Talked to her...thing doing this. I'm it," his strained voice continued.

Obviously the only one he'd talked to since Sam had left was her. The boy wasn't making any sense, but she knew he thought he was and he was struggling so hard to tell her this that she tried her best to listen.

"You're what, honey?"

"I'm what's keeping this going. You kill me and this all ends."

"I know you're hurting bad, but that's one damn long term answer to a short term problem. This isn't it. You're gonna get better if you just hold on. I promise you that."

"Don't matter. I saw 'em...all the people it's taking. I screwed this up. I gotta fix it."

"We are fixing it, but Dean, you ain't thinking straight."

"I'll do it myself."

"Oh like hell you will, boy. You even think of moving off that bed and I will take you down and not in the way you're hoping."

But right now she saw something in him that she hadn't seen since she'd arrived. There was a fire in Dean's glassy hazel eyes that she didn't want to see die out again. He might not be willing to fight to save himself, but he was clearly ready to fight to save these people and she'd do anything she could to help him to feel empowered in that. Short of killing him of course.

"I'll run what you've said by Bobby. We'll see what he's got to say about it."

* * *

Sam sat beside Jo back out in the patrol car. He was still in the passenger seat because he was pretty sure that Jo would stab him with her knife if he thought about snatching the keys. It wasn't as if he blamed her for wanting to be in control here considering the company. He didn't feel much like driving anyway.

Honestly he wasn't sure whether what they had gotten from the library was good or bad news. At least they knew something now. He was just hoping that Bobby could make sense of it.

"It fits," Bobby replied to what Sam had relayed over the phone. "Getting your soul swallowed into oblivion isn't exactly an incentive to worship. Hell, whoever worked the binding must have known that no one in their right mind would be dumb enough to take that crap deal."

"Dad wasn't the one to bind this thing?"

"Oh hell no. This was damn sloppy work and this thing goes back before his time. Your dad had shot into town soon as he put together the pattern, but if he'd had any idea what this really was he wouldn't have touched it with a ten foot pole. Not with you boys in tow. I tried to warn him, but your old man was stubborn as a mule."

It didn't excuse Dad blaming what he didn't know on Dean, but it was at least something to hear that Dad hadn't known what he had been dragging Dean into. Sam had thought Dad had known a whole lot more about this than he apparently did. But if Dad had gone in knowing nothing how could he have expected his eight year old son to know what he was doing?

"If she's bound how is she still killing?" He sent a confused look towards Jo as she nudged him in the side. "Hold on, Bobby...what is it?" he asked her.

"I need to hear this too."

It wasn't like he was going to argue with her about that. They needed all the help they could get on this. He was just too distracted to be thinking clearly about anything.

"Bobby, I'm putting you on speaker." He set the phone on the dashboard between him and Jo. "Okay."

"I was saying your dad had thought the same as you about the circle. He figured it just didn't have that much ritual power behind it anymore, what with the maker being dead and all. We thought it was just the remains keeping her there."

"Did Dad ever find any remains?"

"Never had the chance. He got sick first and after I worked him over he had enough sense not to go back. This soul eater, she was just picking enough to survive until your brother gave her what she needed. In her book it doesn't get any better than a willing first born sacrifice. With this feeding frenzy, pretty soon she may just have enough power to get back a physical form."

"Wouldn't that be something we could fight?" Jo asked hopefully.

"Don't count on it. In the flesh these things are shape shifters and not like the usual. They can look like cats or whatever inconspicuous thing you can think of. If she gets back to that we won't see her leave and no one else will see her coming."

"At least now we have the EMF, but I just don't know how we can stop her like this," Sam said. "Dean and I were right there in the basement with her, Bobby. She grabbed him and I didn't even see it."

"That's 'cause if you forget all this soul eater stuff she's just a ghost of a witch, right?" Jo asked Sam. "It's not like she's actually a witch anymore."

"Yeah, I caught that, but that doesn't mean...."

"Listen up, you chuckle head, Jo's right," Bobby cut in. "We're thinking about this all wrong. You wouldn't go and try to take out a ghost with a baseball bat, would ya?"

"No, but we know this isn't just a ghost."

"And it's not just an old school soul eater either," Jo threw in.

"Look, you're both right and that ain't a good thing. Folklore says these things carry a stone in their body as their source of power, but lucky us, our soul eater dumped her flesh so it's not like you can just cut the stone out of her and the ghost can't have the stone on her because she don't have a damn body."

"But if she's a ghost she had to leave a body behind somewhere," Jo replied.

"And the stone should be with her bones," Sam said, catching on to where Jo was going with this. "If we find the remains we'll have everything we need to stop her."

"At this point, it's our best shot," Bobby agreed. "It's hard to say which is keeping her going, but we'll cover all our bases with a standard salt and burn on the bones and destroying the stone."

"That's great, Bobby, but if we do find it, how are we supposed to destroy it?" Sam asked.

"Call me crazy, but a sledge hammer should do the trick."

"The stone isn't mystically protected?"

"As far as I can tell, no reason it should be. In life it's protected inside the body and they don't usually need them once they're dead."

"So we just hope she was buried and here." It sounded simple enough, but they were working on a tight deadline here. The longer this took the more people died. The more likely Dean would die. "Bobby, finding her body is going to take longer than Dean's got."

"You don't think I know that? I just got off the phone with Ellen before you called."

Sam tensed his jaw, half afraid of what Bobby was going to say. His tone didn't exactly sound like he had good news. "How is he?"

"He asked Ellen to kill him."

His stomach plummeted as he tried to make some kind of sense out of that. Obviously he hadn't heard Bobby right. Even with as much as his brother didn't think he should be alive, there was no way Dean was really trying to off himself just to get out. He looked to Jo who by the expression on her face had heard the exact same thing he had.

"What?" he finally managed to ask.

"You heard me, kid. Your brother says if he dies the sacrificing ends. At least for this round. Simple as that. It matches with what you guys found marked on him. It's not the first or the last sacrifice. It's the first _and_ the last. That's why this thing is playing his death slow motion compared to the rest. She needs him alive until she's got enough energy to break the binding."

"Even if that's true, how could Dean know that?"

"Sam, your brother's been talking to this thing. He must be tapping into the fetch she yanked out of him."

"So she wants Dean to kill himself, probably as part of the sacrifice. It's a trick."

"Not by the way Ellen is telling it. Dean came up with this all his own. I've got an idea, but you're not gonna like it..."

* * *

Ellen brushed her hair aside as she shifted the motel's phone so that it was pinned between her ear and shoulder. Dean was sprawled out on the bed with his eyes closed but she knew he was awake. The boy was restless and incoherent. It didn't seem as if he was able to sleep anymore. Either that or he didn't want to.

Occasionally he mumbled something that sounded useful but there was no way to keep him focused long enough to explain. She wished she could give him something to let him rest, but his hold on life was so tentative that she didn't dare risk it. As much as she didn't want him to suffer, if he didn't slip into a coma he was just as likely to choke on the fluids building in his lungs if she put him under far enough not to feel anything.

"Yeah, I'm still here, Bobby," she spoke into the phone.

She looked away from Dean and focused her full attention to the book on her lap. Over the phone she could just make out the sound of pages rustling before Bobby settled on a number.

"Page sixty-six," he told her.

Ellen flipped through the tattered pages of the musty book she held. The old volume didn't actually have conveniently numbered and index pages so she had to count them out. For a moment she stared at the page she had ended up on. Obviously she had counted wrong, but she got the same result on the second try.

"I don't think so, Bobby."

"There isn't a symbol there? Get your eyes checked. We're looking at copies of the same damn book."

"Then you get your eyes checked, old man. There's a symbol here alright but it's for some kind of last rite."

"That's the one."

The phone nearly slipped from her ear at the certainty of his reply. She was far from competent on ritual work, but like anyone else she knew enough to know that only the dead and dying needed last rites.

Dean mumbled something to himself that Ellen couldn't make out in full. He wasn't making sense anymore and he might look already gone, but she wasn't even close to ready to give up on John's boys.

She lowered her voice as she again spoke into the phone. "I thought you said this could save him."

"You don't think I'm trying? That kid means the world to me and he's had a soul eater dining on him for days now. He's out of time and he's been marked as the prime sacrifice to this thing."

"Yeah, I got all that, but what I don't get is how this is going to help stop it."

"We gotta be real here. If Dean dies now his soul ain't floating off to greener pastures. It's just plain gone. Right now faking a spiritual death is the best I got. Our only other option is to do what Dean is asking for real. We can't just let this go on. Dean wouldn't want to come out of this like that."

Ellen nodded to herself. "I'm with you, Bobby. How's this work?"

"If I'm right, doing this will make Dean look good as dead to the thing feeding off him and it should put an end to the sickness and the sacrifices long enough for Sam and Jo to end this permanently. If there's enough of him left...well, we just gotta hope that Dean can pull through."

"And if you're wrong?"

"He's still dying, but this really should release his soul and it should still stop the raising...it just won't save his life."

Ellen looked down to Dean and blinked away the moisture building in her eyes while pretending to not have heard how hard those last words had been for Bobby to say. Bobby was right. Dean deserved to rest in peace when it was his time, but this wasn't his time. She reached forward to brush her hand against his sweaty cheek. Surely without even realizing he was doing it, he leaned his head into her touch.

"Mom...I'm sorry..." he whispered to her.

"No, sweetie." Momentarily forgetting about Bobby she set the phone aside. "You don't have a damn thing to be sorry for." She leaned forward to embrace him. Damn John for leaving these boys.

Hearing that Bobby was ranting on about something, she picked up the phone again. "Damn it, Ellen! What's going on? Who you talking to?"

"We're okay. Its just Dean."

"What? He's awake?"

"You can't hold a conversation with him if that's what you're hoping."

"But he's conscious?"

"You could say that...why?"

"Damn it. That kid can't do anything easy, can he? I figured he'd be out cold."

"Does he have to be for this to work?"

"Oh it'll work either way, but it's gonna hurt like a freakin' son of a bitch. This thing is juiced all to hell. It's not gonna give a rat's ass about some cute little incantation. This is serious blood magic."

"Does it have to be his blood?" She'd drain herself here and now if it would bring this boy back. In all honesty she wasn't sure that Dean had any blood left to give.

"Afraid so. Right now our boy's got an all you can eat buffet sign carved across his back. Only way to say this one's off limits is to take down the sign and replace it with another."

"You saying I gotta cut it off?"

"Not the whole thing. Just three cuts straight through. I haven't seen it with my own eyes – how big are we talking?"

"Maybe a couple inches tall running the length across his back."

"Damn."

"Are you sure about this, Bobby?"

"As sure as I can be with what we got."

"It'll have to be good enough."

This wasn't going to be pretty. Dean wasn't enough here anymore for her to explain to him what she was doing. As weak as he was she'd be able to hold him down no problem, but with as little as he had left in him she wasn't at all confident that his body would be able to cope with the added stress. It wasn't unlikely that she was killing him either way.

She reached up and moved the phone away from her mouth as all her struggle to keep composed faltered. When Sam had called her out here she hadn't even considered the possibility that they weren't going to fix this, but at this point they didn't honestly know whether or not even killing the bastard thing behind this would be enough to stop the course of the disease for those who were already ill.

"Ellen?"

She took another long moment before answering him. "He's not going to make it, Bobby."

"Ellen. You listen to me and you listen good. This isn't over. Damn far from it. Sam and Jo are doing their part. You've gotta do yours. I wish like I hell I was there, but I'm not so you gotta do this. Dean is gonna make it. You hear me?"

"Loud and clear."

"We're just getting warmed up. It's all there in the book. Let me know how it goes."

"Sure. Talk to you soon, Bobby."

Her unsteady hand hung up the phone before rubbing her cheeks dry. There wasn't anytime for hesitating and no room for doubt. As soon as she gave up Dean would do the same. She went to the bathroom to get some towels and when she returned she carefully began to untangle the damp sheets that had become twisted around him.

"Need to turn you over," she warned him on the off chance that he really could register what she was saying.

At first he made a token resistance against the unwanted movement but then surrendered. He might not have that large of a frame, but the boy was solid muscle and it was no easy thing to gently roll him without any help from him.

Still, with some effort she managed to get him laying on his stomach and positioned in a way that she hoped wouldn't impede his already labored breathing too badly. She pulled the sheets back over him enough to give the boy some dignity before checking out the angry raised skin on his back.

He was still mumbling something against the pillow his head laid against but she didn't try to listen. His words weren't for her anymore. She watched him for a moment longer before reaching into her bag and pulling out a dagger.

She removed it from its sheath and looked at the glistening blade, but set it to the side and reached out to Dean. His body was likely to go into shock no matter what she did, but she'd feel a hell of a lot better about this if she could get his mind with her for long enough to prepare him.

"Dean? I need you to answer me if you can hear me."

"Mmhm."

Just making that sound was enough to make him wince, but even with his eyes closed she could tell by the tensing muscles of his face that he was struggling to follower her. At least he was trying.

"We've got something to help you, but it's going to hurt like hell and I need you to try..."

Her eyes closed for a moment as she bit her lower lip, but her eyes flew open a second later as she felt a touch on her hand. Somehow Dean's hand had found hers and he gripped it softly. At that moment he was here enough to know how difficult this was for her, but she was afraid about what he thought was coming. As far as she knew he was still expecting her to kill him.

"It's okay," he rasped.

The trust he portrayed with those simple words terrified her. Not able to verbally answer him, her other hand set firmly on top of his. He shouldn't be the one telling her that.

His hand moved away as he coughed weakly and struggled to regain the lost air. She had to get him off his chest.

"I just need you to try to hold still as you can, honey. I'll do the rest."

His head nodded stiffly in reply.

"That's a brave boy."

She got the impression that he knew his life was in her hands as much as she knew it. The only difference was that one of them received comfort from that fact. It certainly wasn't her.

She pulled out her medical kit before again lifting the dagger. Hesitation wasn't going to serve either of them and this boy wasn't going to be swallowed into oblivion because she'd taken too long to do what was needed.

With a couple of the towels set against both sides of him to catch the blood she put her free hand on the slick skin of his back for a warning as mush as anything else. She hated the fact, but she could clearly see from all the faded scars that already adorned his back that this boy had been beaten and cut up enough in his short life to be ready for what was coming.

As she drew the blade firmly across his tender skin his hips pushed down into the mattress in an unconscious attempt to move away. His hands gripped the edges of the bed with all the strength he had left in him and a pained groan escaped him, but he made no further effort to pull away. He hissed as she tried to mop up the blood that was so quickly welling to the surface.

As soon as she could see the area well enough to continue she ran the second cut across the width of his back. Dean's shoulders arched up. With the third slice he tried burying his head in the pillow either to muffle his cry or maybe just to wish this all away but a moment later he came up frantically gasping for air. And he wasn't getting any.

"Finish it," he barely breathed.

"I'm working as fast as I can. I need to get this symbol right."

But she nearly instantly realized that it wasn't the pain he was trying to escape. The gasping of his empty attempts to draw in oxygen quickly turned to choking as he began coughing increasingly larger quantities of blood onto the pillow.

"She knows."

He had barely been able to choke out the words as he gagged on the blood flowing from his mouth. But she'd heard him well enough to driven to instant action.

"No. You're not taking him, bitch."

She slammed the book onto the mattress beside Dean's convulsing body. It took pressing all of her weight onto him to stop him from curling in on himself as she struggled to trace the ritual's symbol onto his back.

The moment she finished slicing the jagged lines Dean's body collapsed as still as death beneath her. She removed her weight from him and the dagger slipped form her numb fingers. The blood continued to flow good and strong from his wounds but she could no longer hear him breathing.


	13. Chapter 13

**This is the last chapter for this story. Thank you again to everyone for your helpful and encouraging feedback.  
**

* * *

"It will soon be your turn, child," the soul eater assured him.

"Awesome," Dean muttered in reply. "Can't wait."

He paced the boundary of her circle as he tried to work up a new plan. Now he knew for a fact that she wasn't just a ghost. It had been easy enough to think she was when he'd been a kid and everything had been simple. When it had been easy enough to say take me and have this town without even wondering what that meant.

Now he still had to make those choices but he had to wade through the grey to find the right way. The funny thing was that it didn't change the calls he made. It just made him feel like crap when he made them.

Like now. It was easy enough to tell Ellen to kill him. Hell, he was basically dead anyway and maybe he was looking for an out, but he was lying to himself if he thought Sam was really just going to walk away. He'd seen what Jessica's death had done to his brother. He knew exactly what Sam would do if his brother was taken out by some other dark and nasty and he wasn't going to let that happen.

Being in this world hurt more than he could take most of the time, but he'd drug Sam back into this fight and he owed it to his little brother to see Sam through it. He had promised Dad he would. Of course he had promised Dad more than he could deliver on.

Really it didn't matter what he did. Everything had some kind of ugly consequence. There was no winning in this crap world, but that was life. He could feel sorry for himself later.

Right now he was surrounded by souls that were sacrifices because he'd opened the floodgates for this thing. He didn't know what a soul eater was exactly, but he'd caught on from the pieces he'd heard of Ellen and Bobby's phone conversations. He'd also seen and heard enough from the thing itself to get the gist.

By taking him when she was ready for him and no sooner, she'd break free all the stronger than she'd ever been. It would be open season on this town and plenty of others. That was why he needed to get out of here on his own timeline, before she had the strength she needed.

He hadn't had a choice before. He'd done what he'd done to save his family, not to hurt anyone. Sure he should have known and sure the world would be better off if it was still Dad here, not him, but Dad wasn't here. Dad had left him in this alone, again, and what he'd done was done. There was no taking it back. There was only stopping it. He was far from a willing sacrifice now.

But the shifting walls kept collapsing in around him and nothing he did even got noticed. Not by the soul eater and not by the other spirits around him. The creature twisted and shifted her form at will, took who she wanted when she wanted and she'd thanked him. Without his sacrifice this all wouldn't have been possible, she had assured him. Well screw her.

Dean had heard what Ellen was saying about the ritual clear as day. He'd heard and seen everything including the ritual in the book because he hadn't been watching from his body.

Forcing himself back into the physical he had tried to yell at her to stop interrogating Bobby and just do it already, but his body wasn't playing along anymore. The soul eater had taken too much from him. The additional strength he'd had when outside of his body was fading too. He was fading.

This was his fight and he was the only one in it that couldn't do a damn thing. At least it turned out that his body was still good for something. He didn't know exactly how this ritual worked on the mystical side so he wanted to make sure to be in his body once the connection was cut if only so that the soul eater didn't get her final sacrifice.

It was easier said than done. The motel room kept flashing out as he felt the pull of this thing strengthen. At least with the first slice of the sharpened steel blade into his back he had something to grab on to. He focused on the searing pain and turned it into something he could focus on.

Despite his best efforts to let the pain swallow him, suddenly he wasn't bleeding out on a motel bed but was standing in the center of the circle he had earlier been excluded from. At first he didn't see the soul eater there but then he sensed her behind him. He tried to turn to face her but he was now as frozen out of his body as he had been inside of it. It wasn't like he had to see to know what she was doing.

Things flashed out again as the symbol was broken further. Enough so that he could warn Ellen to move it along. Time was up for everyone involved.

A suffocating wall of energy came down around him in the non-physical and in the physical he was drowning in his own blood. There was nowhere left to go. In the next instance he had expected nothing but an end to existence. Sorry Sammy. It turned out he didn't have it in him after all.

But oblivion didn't come. Instead he felt a painfully desperate need for oxygen. His mind checked out and his body took over. It spat out the hot liquid that blocked his airway and pulled in a greedy gulp of air that his lungs finally accepted. That simple action had taken all the energy he had left.

* * *

Pushing the book away, Ellen rolled Dean's limp body onto its side to take the pressure off his chest. With one hand she kept a towel pressed tight against the wounds on his back while the fingers of her other hand searched his neck for a pulse.

"Oh thank god," she gasped in relief.

It was way too fast and not nearly strong enough, but it was there, which was far better than what she had feared. Finally she could hear his breathing too.

The breaths were now so quiet compared to the forced attempts for air that she had been hearing from him that it almost sounded like he wasn't breathing at all. In reality the volume was now a lot closer to normal. It would be a comfort except that like his pulse, the breaths were just too shallow and the rhythm far from steady.

While it wasn't what she wanted, he was at least stable enough for her to take care of his back before he lost any more blood. Tipping him back over onto his stomach she pulled the towel away to get a look at the wounds. She gently mopped away the blood that quickly pooled at the small of his back.

The large angry cuts she had made were brutally visible against his pale skin, but the raised symbol of sacrifice had vanished as if it had never been there at all. With that confirmed she returned the pressure of the towel. This time Dean seemed more aware of the sensation there and took a sharp intake of breath as she pressed against his back.

She looked to his face and realized that his eyes were open. His vision was unfocused but he was still conscious. Even though his dilated pupils didn't move from their fixed position he seemed to realize that she was watching him.

"It worked," he told her hoarsely.

"That's a good thing. A real good thing."

As she repositioned the towels on his back her hand brushed against his skin. Not liking what she felt, she set a hand on his shoulder. His skin that had felt so painfully hot a minute earlier was now cold and clammy though he was still drenched in sweat. It was then that she realized how badly his naked body was beginning to shiver. She eased her pressure on the wounds long enough to recover the comforter that had been abandoned on the floor before she'd arrived.

Carved ritual symbols be damned if she thought there was any doctor to see him she'd already have an ambulance on its way. Shock could kill him as well as any demon could, but there was no one to see him so she was just going to have to stop the bleeding and get him warmed as fast as she could.

She threw the comforter over him where he lay and tucked it snuggly around him. She only left enough of his bare skin exposed to clean up the wounds. After a quick trip to the bathroom she returned with an ice bucket full of warm water. Carefully she began to clean the area well enough to get it bandaged.

From the tensing of his back and muffled groans it was painfully obvious that his nerves were working all too well. Still he didn't complain. Instead he coughed again, but this was different than any she had heard before from him. It didn't sound deep, more just like his throat was irritated. At the least his lungs were clearing out.

She started pulling gauze from her kit when he spoke again. "Don't waste too much of that. I need a shower."

"Don't you even think about getting uppity with me. You're staying put until you got some strength back. You're not fit to stand."

"A bath?"

She realized what he was asking when she lifted the comforter to really look at the bed. The mattress he laid on was soaked in his own blood and he was laying in a sticky mess of it. It was little wonder the boy wanted to get clean, but she couldn't physically haul him to the bathroom until he was able to at least put his own feet under him.

"Soon, sweetie. Let's just try sitting up first."

"Yeah...okay."

Given that he hadn't moved under his own will since she'd arrived in town just sitting up probably sounded like an insurmountable task to the poor boy. He grimaced and was obviously still painfully weak and disoriented, but he was able to help her move him into a fairly upright position. She helped steady him and repositioned the comforter so that it was still tucked warmly around him.

With a fresh moistened towel she wiped some of the blood from his face. His eyes were blank, but she needed him to stay with her. Aside from having lost so much blood he hadn't eaten in days. He wasn't going to get any stronger until she got something into him.

Her hand grasped the cup that had earlier held ice chips. She steadied his head and put the cup to his lips. At first he hesitated, choking on the water with more of it running down his chin than into his mouth but then he started gulping it down far too fast. It killed her, but she had to pull the cup out his reach.

"Thirsty," he protested.

"I know you are. That's real good, but you've just gotta take it slow."

She moved to sit down on a clean spot on the bed next to him and put her arm around him. He was going to make it. She breathed a grateful sigh of relief at that realization.

Again she placed a kiss on his forehead before standing up. If she was going to keep the youngest of the Winchester boy's sane she was going to have to do her best to have Sam's brother put back together for him by the time he got back.

* * *

_Green Bay City Hall  
_

Sam slipped the phone back into his pocket before joining Jo at the basement records desk. Earlier they had been getting around authorities because there just wasn't anyone on the streets, but not too long ago everything had changed.

People were starting to move around again, but they still hadn't had any problems given that in all the commotion no one thought anything of the two officers coming in to check some old county medical records. Usually a small town like this would have been suspicious of officers that they didn't recognize, but so many had come in to deal with the outbreak that no one really knew who anyone was here.

"So what's the word?" Jo asked.

"I guess it worked. Dr. Hammond says the survivors are starting to recover and Ellen says Dean isn't sick anymore. We just have to find this body before this thing finds a way around this."

"Dig in," Jo said as she handed Sam half the sanitarium records before she started flipping through her own pile. "Do we have any idea what we're even looking for?"

"Bobby was pretty sure that the living version of the soul eater would have traveled up from the Caribbean, I guess the lore carried over there. We're looking for any name that sticks out."

If any one on this list had immigrated from Nigeria or another Hausa based community the name should be pretty obviously from the rest. Mostly they were looking at a long list of Joes, Johns, Roberts, Marys and Sarahs.

"Like uh...'Laraba'?" Jo read off one of the sheets.

"Seriously?" Sam put down his papers and leaned over to see Jo's. "That has to be her. Did she die here?"

"Let's see...sure did. It says here that she died in 1918 of the Spanish Flu after visiting Astoria." Jo put the papers down and looked to Sam. "The timing matches with those other records I was talking about. The increase in unexplained deaths started in 1916, but stopped in 1927. They started in on the ten year cycle after that."

"That must have been the year she was bound. Please tell me it says where she's buried."

"Quiet Bay Pioneer Cemetery. Plot thirteen."

"Perfect. Let's swing by the motel. There are shovels in the Impala."

* * *

Sam could barely wait for the patrol car to stop before he jumped out and nearly ran towards the motel room. He wasn't really here for shovels. Ellen had assured him that Dean was awake and talking, getting stronger, but in his head all he could still see was his brother too weak to breath.

By the time he reached the motel room door Ellen had already opened it. The moment he saw her he pulled her into his arms. If Dean had needed anything, it had been her and Sam had just as badly needed to know that she was there for Dean.

"Ellen, I don't even know how to thank you."

"You brought my daughter back safe. It's a fair trade."

He met Ellen's eyes as he pulled back. She looked as exhausted as he felt. There was really no way that he could have done this alone. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jo coming up behind them.

"Jo did a lot of good work on this."

"I don't doubt it," Ellen replied with a warm smile to her daughter. "She's a smart girl, even if she don't listen so good."

"You know you love that about me," Jo replied with a grin of her own before leaning in between her mom and the doorframe. "Hey Dean, glad you're not dead."

Sam looked over Jo to see Dean on the bed. His brother was laying on his side propped up on one elbow absently swirling his finger in a cup of some kind of steaming liquid that he was no doubt supposed to be drinking.

When Jo had spoken Dean had looked up. His tired eyes moved between the three of them watching him from the doorway. Sam could have sworn he almost saw a hint of a smile on Dean's lips.

"Yeah. I think I am too," Dean replied. "Thanks for helping to save my ass, Jo."

"Not a problem, but let's not keep this as a tradition, okay?"

"It's old already," Dean agreed before returning his eyes to the cup in his hand.

Ellen set a hand on Sam's arm to draw his attention. "Dean's still got a long way to go, be careful with him," she told Sam quietly. "We'll give you boys some room."

As soon as Ellen and Jo moved aside Sam went into the room, closing the door behind him. It didn't even feel like the same room. All the lights were on again, Ellen had worked some kind of magic on the stain in the carpet and taken care of all the bloody towels and sheets. One of the bed's mattresses was also gone, which Sam was pretty sure he didn't want to know anything about.

By the time he was back at Dean's side he had forgotten about the room and his focus was solely on Dean. His brother still had dark circles under his eyes and was still too painfully pale, but he was breathing easy and he was staying on his side all on his own. Those two things alone were miracles.

Dean set the cup he was holding on the bed stand and pushed himself up so that he was sitting on the bed. He cringed at the movement but he was strong enough to do it.

"Dean..."

He couldn't care less how much Dean hated it. He moved in to embrace his brother. He just needed to feel that he was really there and really sitting on his own power. Dean seemed to know that he needed it and let him. To a point.

"Okay. Seriously. Hands off, Sammy. I didn't turn into your girlfriend while you were gone."

It was pretty obvious from the fact that Dean only complained and didn't force his way out of the hug that he had far from recovered his strength, but everything considered he looked worlds better. He was alive and that simple fact caused the relief that flooded through Sam to be nearly overwhelming.

Remembering something else, Sam reached behind Dean and moved the comforter draped over him enough to see his back. "Is it really gone?" He couldn't see for himself because he found a serious load of bandaging covering almost half off Dean's back.

"Ellen had to go all Zoro on me," Dean explained, "but yeah, she says it's gone."

Sam couldn't help but set his hand against the uninjured portion of his brother's back just to feel that his skin felt as it should. Dean squirmed under the touch.

"I'm naked here, dude. Personal bubble," Dean warned him.

Finally appeased, Sam returned the comforter and stood back to look at Dean who he realized wasn't actually looking at him.

"Are you really okay?"

It took a long moment but Dean finally looked up from the bed. "Is this over?"

"Almost. The sacrifices have stopped for now and people are getting better."

"Why just almost?"

"We still need to burn the bones."

"I'm coming. Tell Ellen I can get out of bed."

Sam couldn't help but chuckle at the thought that Dean was waiting on permission from Ellen to get up. Dean just glared up at him.

"It's not funny. She won't give me my clothes."

"You're not going anywhere until you at least finish that chicken broth, boy. Last time I let you stand on your own you passed out and nearly cracked your head open on the bathtub," Ellen said as she came back into the room.

"I need to do this, Ellen."

"The last thing you need to be doing is digging up a grave."

"I don't wanna dig. That's what I got Sam for." There was a trace of the old twinkle in his eye though it quickly faded to dark. "I want to watch the bitch burn."

"You're owed that much," Ellen agreed. "Jo and I can help finish this up if you need."

"No," Dean replied. "I think I need to do this."

"I thought you might say as much."

Ellen moved back to Dean's side and dropped a clean set of cloth on the bed next to him. Before moving away she set her hand on his cheek and waited for him to meet her eyes.

"You do good work, kid. This world is far better off with you still in it. Don't you ever doubt that. You hear me?"

"Yes ma'am."

"That's a good boy. Take care of him, Sam."

Sam had every intention of doing just that. Dean might be wholly convinced that he was the only one with care taking responsibilities here, but it was a two way street and neither of them were going to survive this without the other one.

* * *

_Quiet Bay Pioneer Cemetery_

"How many people died?"

Dean's question came out of nowhere and Sam knew that nothing good would come from answering it. From what Ellen had told him about Dean's being in two places at once, Dean had seen most of the victims first hand. He'd had to watch and Sam knew that nothing he said was going to make that just go away.

"Don't, Dean. Just don't."

He turned back to look at Dean. His brother wasn't all that steady on his feet, but he was standing on his own. It was everything he had wanted for Dean to be at his side again, but mentally Dean was far from here. He wasn't yet the annoying brother that Sam wanted back so badly.

His brother's eyes were locked in on the flames in the pit at his feet. Dean hadn't said a single word the whole time Sam had been excavating Laraba's casket or while he'd stood aside and let Dean tear the stone from the remains of her body cavity.

Dean had wanted to bust it up himself, but Sam had convinced him that it wasn't worth screwing his back up anymore over. Instead Dean had stuck to burning the remains. It didn't require the exertion that Dean usually craved to relieve frustration, but Sam was pretty sure that Dean was still too exhausted to lift a sledgehammer anyway.

"You get this wasn't your fault, right?" Sam asked.

"So everyone keeps telling me."

"Jo and I went through the city records. The property that the sanitarium sits on...Dean, it did sell last month. The new owners are just waiting for an okay on the development rights. If we hadn't come the demolition would have broken the binding and this thing would have been set free. Only there wouldn't have been anyone here to stop it."

Leaving the sight of the open grave, Dean walked over and kicked at the shattered remains of the stone. His brother didn't look at Sam let alone look like he planned to say anything in reply.

"Twelve of the people who died here would have died whether or not you had come and even if they left the sanitarium standing, in ten years another twelve and then another. No one else is going to die here because you stopped this. Don't beat yourself up, Dean."

His brother went back over to the car and dug out the whiskey flask Sam had hidden beneath the driver's seat the night he had been sure he was going to loose Dean. Sam was going to tell him to put it down, but if Dean wanted a drink he sure deserved one.

Dean sat stiffly on the edge of a cemetery bench before he finally spoke. "She thanked me."

"Who?"

"The soul eater."

Sam shook his head and put down the shovel to join Dean on the bench. The weight Dean put on himself because of Dad and his own stubbornness wasn't something that Sam could take from him. No matter how hard he tried, Dean refused to let him. He could only help him carry it.

He was quiet as he tried to think of what he could say that Dean would listen to, but he realized a moment later that he didn't have to say anything at all.

"It's what I had to do. Wouldn't change it," Dean told him flatly. "I just wish I was the only one to get screwed for it."

"Do you still want out?"

Dean took a swig from the flask before he glared at Sam. "Dude. I was dying. You can't use that against me."

"Do you know what people say when they're dying?"

"Anything their dopey Lifetime movie network watching little brother wants to hear?"

Sam raised a brow at him. "The truth. They say the truth, Dean."

"The truth, Sammy? I really don't want you in this fight alone, but you're not. I'm still here and we're still in this." He looked away for a moment before looking back to Sam. "I'm strong enough to do whatever we gotta do."

"I know you are. It's about time you saw it too."

"Yeah, whatever. Do you know what else I am?"

"What's that?"

"Starving. My gut is telling me we've got days worth of missed meals to make up for and you weren't wrong about the local diner's claim to fame – world's best huckleberry pie. And double stack cheeseburgers."

Sam shook his head and smiled. "I'm sure that's exactly what Ellen had in mind for your first real meal."

"What can I say? You gotta do what you gotta do, Sammy."

He could tell by the look in Dean's eyes that his brother wasn't talking about eating, but it didn't matter. As he watched Dean slowly get up and walk back to the car he knew that his big brother had a long way to go, but he was going to be okay. They both were.


End file.
